In the United States, demand for internal agriculture stability and scarcity of money for farmers with low outputs (non-fertilized production) produces a perceived need to use fertilizers, which, as Davidson points out, causes a variety of problems in the US. Notable among these environmental issues so engendered are algae blooms, ground-water depletion and poisoning, and selenium poisoning of topsoils.

It is readily apparent that scarcity produced problems are a major cause of ecological devastation worldwide. Unfortunately, since increasing output is not ecologically feasible- indeed is a major cause of such problems- the only way to reduce scarcity driven damage is to reduce demand, thereby allowing scarce resources to more adequately supply the entire population. The most efficient way to reduce demand in the case of food production and consumption of other commodities is to reduce the population demanding such items. There is no shortage of ways to reduce human population dramatically and with relative immediacy. However, there are few that also can be used in such a way as to have a viable economic system afterwards.

In this case, a viable economic system also demands sustainability. This means that not only should the system be able to facilitate with ease the needs of the entire population, and do so for the foreseeable future, but should be able to accommodate a reasonable growth rate within the population. Finally, none of the factors of production of this sustainable system should be limited resources. Or, at the very least, none should be resources that are limited to less than multiple thousands of years after allowing for pre-accepted growth rates of the population.

In order to most easily create a sustainable economy, exiting infrastructure should be put to use, but be stripped of elements that make it unsustainable. For instance, in the case of agriculture, existing farms, fenced grazing land, irrigation systems, and such should be used, however fertilizers should be minimized, irrigation should be limited to the approximate rates of replacement of the water sources from which they are drawn, uneven row planting methods should be used to minimize topsoil loss, fields should no be placed adjacent to one another but should remain with native planted buffers, and fields should be allowed to lay fallow three years in every four.