subtenante

Not to be pedantic, but Stoics do not attach to health either. Only virtue.

Markets won't solve anything. We are talking about the see "contaminating" very large areas of arable land with brackish water, lowering fresh water supplies and preventing to cultivate a lot of what is currently done.

We have picked ourselves up, precisely, by using fossil energies, the ones that are causing the current troubles, and the ones that are getting less and less available. What will happen in the future can not be inferred by how we managed in the past to get where we are ; I have no doubt that humanity will survive the collapse of our societies, but there is no possible way to know where the equilibrium will be restored in terms of number of individuals on the planet once the stress on fossil fuels is too big. It may be anywhere between where we are now and the hundred millions, combined to a dramatic lowering of the life expectancy.

So, electricity. So, coal?

I am trying to provide context regarding the whole problem. Besides, the guy I talked about uses heavy technology whenever he can (he needs special equipment to take macro pictures of bugs, he needs social interaction with other people in local vicinity spotting larvae of a pest, he needs way to statistically test land lots, he needs ways to measure sun exposition and time, etc.) ; the last thing he needs is robots doing his job though.

And every question is as loaded with philosophy as any of its answers. :)

Agriculture in our age must shift from productivity first to sustainability first, because we are running out of fossil energy allowing to produce most of the fertilizers, and we have already killed our soil with it. A farm involving a lot of machines (i.e. a lot of need for energy) might not be the way to go in order to keep the agricultural system stable. The most you ask from the soil, the poorer it gets, and then you have to dump fertilizer to keep some level productivity.

We have created flawed models of what was good for productivity. I work with a guy very invested in research on olive growing (here in the south of France), he's achieving results believed to be impossible by many agricultural researchers. His method is entirely organic, shifted towards correct use of pollination, cross breeding and a lot of care, the kind of which automated sensors remain lacking of. From what he told me, he's able to develop the root system of an olive tree ~4 times as fast as researchers using what is believed to be optimal conditions.

We already have excellent robots able to take care of farms, they're called humans. Farming is a very noble activity and instead of less farmers, we need more, with more time to study the impact of pollinizers on their crops, how to deal with the new pollinizers they'll get due to climate change, etc. All of which can't be done unless we re-humanize farm work.