[m_coder]

You are right on target however I am not seeing people here understanding that the tight spot is not land but manpower.

It seems to me that people think that if the first farm is more efficient in converting labor, dollars and cheap fuel into food than the second farm, then the first is the most efficient farm across all categories including land use. When one of the pieces changes (for instance fuel costs) then the formula needs to be revisited.

Realizing that personal, scientific and careful management of land yields more food per acre without agri chemical products is an important first step to thinking about the picture even if the low cost of fuel is a current reality.

[pas]

Yeah, people are just completely inoculated against all forms of nuance :D

What I think is important to add to that equation is some dynamism of those prices/costs. Because even though fuel (fertilizer) costs are rising now, it's unlikely that they'll stay high, and changing from one form of industrial scale agriculture to some other is likely even more costly (than bearing years of high fuel costs).

One quite possible scenario is that if fossil fuel use falls so much that production becomes so uneconomic that prices still rise (or remain relatively high).

Of course, eventually as with everything that is eaten by technological progress it's likely that we'll start using a lot more energy (just not from burning fossil fuel) to have better controlled production. (Call it 'vertical farming', but it might look completely different, maybe big domes or ... who knows.)