This is very deep research, thank you!! The use of "green" water (from rivers and lakes) and especially "blue" water from underground aquifers is particularly troubling especially with the deployment of circular overhead spray irrigation. This represents extreme water wastage as well as commencing the same problems India is facing with aquifer depletion and ever-deeper drilling to reach more water. As well there is the issue of power for the pump systems, massive fertilizer inputs for crops with high nutrient requirements and probable lack of suitable (in type or quantity) of pollenator species. Such activities repeat the errors of the "Green Revolution" of the past century and put a thick financial floor under all food production, whereas in the native pastoral system, food could be produced at lower input cost while ensuring biosphere integrity rather than destruction and depletion. That represents the false benefit of "commercial scale farming."
This is very deep research, thank you!! The use of "green" water (from rivers and lakes) and especially "blue" water from underground aquifers is particularly troubling especially with the deployment of circular overhead spray irrigation. This represents extreme water wastage as well as commencing the same problems India is facing with aquifer depletion and ever-deeper drilling to reach more water. As well there is the issue of power for the pump systems, massive fertilizer inputs for crops with high nutrient requirements and probable lack of suitable (in type or quantity) of pollenator species. Such activities repeat the errors of the "Green Revolution" of the past century and put a thick financial floor under all food production, whereas in the native pastoral system, food could be produced at lower input cost while ensuring biosphere integrity rather than destruction and depletion. That represents the false benefit of "commercial scale farming."