In the now-developed West, the change from subsistence farming to surplus production was dramatically accelerated by Harry Ferguson’s development of a three point linkage giving weight transfer – cultivations, weed control and husbandry greatly improved, land was released from feeding horses and labour reduced and progressively made available to the urban economy.
Today, in developing farm production in poor countries, manufactured fertiliser costs are high and, because of energy costs, will not get lower in time. Making fertiliser by composting urban wastes is an available technology which provides nutrients, reduces cultivation costs, reduces irrigation need, and progressively lowers crop diseases. It also provides a chargeable service to the urban economy. This “closed loop” economy sees urban wastes as a resource which can provide that trigger for rapid change and development, and is described in detail in “Survival; sustainable energy, wastes, shale gas and the land” by Bill Butterworth and available free for download at Amazon
Д-р. Bill Butterworth