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A review of in the New York Review of Books (Volume LXIX, No. 3) of:
"We are continuously taking nutrients from some parts of the plaent and discharging them in others," Zeldovich writes.
As Zeldovich observes, our waste treatment methods have set up a vicious cycle. Since we don't return our nitrogren output to our fields [...] our soils are getting depleted. They therefore require more synthetic fertilizier, which puts more nitrogen into the water. "Farm soils turn to dust while waterways suffocate from toxic algal blooms," she writes.
Kolbert doesn't mention it, but this reminds me of the "Circulus" theory. Quote Wikipedia:
Circulus was a socioeconomics doctrine devised by nineteenth-century French utopian socialist Pierre Leroux (1797–1871), who proposed that human excrement be collected by the state in the form of a tax and used as fertiliser, thereby increasing agricultural production sufficiently to prevent Malthusian catastrophe.
Zeldovich examines some proposed methods of using human fecal matter to fertilize fields, or generate electrical energy by burning the methane it can produce. In Kolbert's estimation, none of these will scale.
Handelsman wants to draw attention to the loss of all types of soil, but particularly "mollisols", which "feed the world".
The mollisol-rich state of Iowa produces more corn and soy-beans that most countries. The state has already "lost enough soil to see disturbing yield reductions, and the projections for the future are bleak," Handelsman reports.
"There is a saying among soil scientists that for every kilo of corn harvested, the field loses a kilo of soil." A trillion kilos of corn, she notes, are harvested every year.
"As soil erosion intensifies worldwide, many countries my experience crop loss simultaneously, creating unprecedented food shortages," Handelsman warns.
It's estimated that synthetic fertilizers support almost half of the 7.9 billion people now alive...
No till agriculture would address the problem, and was revived in the 1970s, but only accounts for 20% of yield today. It's major drawback is that it requires herbicide use that comes with its own environmental problems.