There's a guy named John Kaisner that did youtube videos about permaculture and he was working for an outfit that sent him to the middle east to teach the locals how to grow a food forest. He worked his butt off setting up food producing trees and bushes, all native and he set up irrigation from the rain. Very low maintenance once done. The natives stood around and watched and he once made a comment; "They can't be bothered"
I read an old book from the 1800s and the author was talking about muslims and described it as "slovenly methods of agriculture".
Another guy doing permaculture over near the Nile, Geoff Lawton, set up a little green spot in the middle of the desert. Had trees growing with swales to catch the rain. Even had some mushrooms pop up in the mulch which freaked the locals out because they had never seen them before. Couple of years later, he had to go do other things for a year or so. When he came back, they had let goats have at the area and they ate everything down to nubs. He built walls and greened the place up again.
Below sea level near the Nile and high salinity soil that hasn't been green in thousands of years. The trees are drought resistant native species. Then there's an understory of food producing trees and below that, they grow veggies.
Another guy did this in China using regenerative agriculture techniques. The system uses animals but they're well managed and moved often so that plenty of growth remains. It's even greener than the After pic now.
The above area had been overgrazed by goats. All the restoration work was done by hand. The people that live in the area all grabbed shovels, picks and hoes and pitched in. They have plenty to eat now but knowing communism, I imagine the CCP will raid them at some point.
Most of the far & middle east and Africa has great potential for feeding people, IF they're willing to put in the effort. Get enough trees growing again and the rains come back. China turned a big portion of their best ag land to desert by overgrazing. We do it here with over-tilling and terrible grazing techniques. I'm surrounded by cattle farms and they almost all do the same thing. Let the cows go wherever they want whenever they want. Zero management. There's one guy down the road who moves his herd fairly regularly to different paddocks and he has the best grass around.
Big AG is not working out too good. Every species on the planet knows how to build their own shelter and feed themselves, except one, humans. Lack of food is a careless lazy human thing.