A study published in Nature says the U.S. “corn belt” has lost something like 35% of its topsoil. Sounds concerning, and I have heard dramatic claims like “the world only has 50 years of topsoil left. I also just find it sad to think that the topsoil was built up by the prairies over the millennia, and we have mined much of it into oblivion in a few short industrial generations. But this article also puts the loss in terms of crop yields at around 6%, which doesn’t sound so dramatic. This makes me think we are relying largely on agricultural chemicals rather than nutrients in the soil itself. Maybe it would actually make more sense to intensify industrial agricultural in some areas or even indoors, contain the impacts, and restore some of those prairies.