>>We have been living in a Diamond age, and have squandered it.
I agree. I know what I would have done differently (in hindsight and if I had been the policymaker of the US for the past 50 years). What would you have done differently?
“What would you have done differently?”
I think we should have considered the ability of microbes to develop resistance. Not long ago my wife had an infection that nearly killed her. They took a culture and had something like 40 strains they looked for, and they listed what worked with each strain. The first ones on the list were easiest to kill and listed a large number of drugs, some very familiar. The last ones on the list were much tougher, and only had one or two exotic drugs that worked. Thankfully her strains (several of them) were all on the top of the list.
This crap is SERIOUS...surgeries is one of the few areas where I actually respect modern medicine...since you can be totally blind (cataracts, for example) and then come out seeing again, often for the first time in years. We do need a serious effort, and if it takes a “dame” to point it out, who cares!!!
Limit repeat use of pesticides and herbicides in an area.
You need to vary the chemistry. Things that get used to chemical A will be knocked down by B. This needs to be over a region, not just on a field by field basis.
More crop variety. We gave a lot of incentives to corn and soybean growers, which led to more corn and soy being planted and less wheat, oats, onions, whatever. Now if a farmer in say, Dodge county Nebraska wanted to plant something different, there is no local options to process that crop. Dual culture growing means the weeds only have to fight two (or maybe one) type of plant. This would also be better for prices.
Corn prices are not that much more than when I was a kid. Instead of trying to make farms grow more corn by subsidies, let the market decide. This will lead to a change in the food industry, but we are so maize (corn) heavy that would be a great thing.
Less tax breaks for major corporate land holders on equipment and land taxes. A large landholder makes more money on subsidies and tax breaks than on farming in many years (which is why I became an engineer and my cousin still farms). So we indirectly pay more for food via tax policy than the market.
That is for starters.