What's somewhat amusing is this is essentially talking about a variation on the four course crop rotation, a farming practice that dates back to the 17th century, and at one stage dominated the farming practices of Europe.
> In the Norfolk four-course system, wheat was grown in the first year, turnips in the second, followed by barley, with clover and ryegrass undersown, in the third. The clover and ryegrass were grazed or cut for feed in the fourth year. The turnips were used for feeding cattle and sheep in the winter. This new system was cumulative in effect, for the fodder crops eaten by the livestock produced large supplies of previously scarce animal manure, which in turn was richer because the animals were better fed. When the sheep grazed the fields, their waste fertilized the soil, promoting heavier cereal yields in following years.
It's been used state-side for a few hundred years as well. I learned about it in my high school American history class. Colonial era tobacco farmers experienced deleted soil conditions, so they turned to 4 crop rotations. My dad had a farm back in the 70's, and he rotated crops for this reason. It's not a lost art among farmers.
Note that crop rotation itself (2 course/3 course) is much, much older. And Wikipedia claims it was first done in the 16th century in what now is Belgium.
Actually, there are a bunch of things presented as 'new' in the article while I read nothing which I never read before, and many of the solutions bascialy come down to 'do it as our ancestors did it' so it's not all that new either. The vast scale of it though is new. And the rigid economic system attached to it.
2 course / 3 course used to rely on fallow periods, IIRC, though it's been more than 20 years since I covered this in school :)
What's so significant about all this stuff is that this agrarian revolution lead to greater food productivity, increasing populations, and started to increase the labour pool available for other tasks. This stuff basically kick started the eventual industrial revolution. That's part of why it's so strange to see it coming around again
the point about Norfolk four course rotation is that, like the article suggests, it keeps the ground covered in plants at all times so preventing the dustbowl.
from https://www.britannica.com/topic/Norfolk-four-course-system
> In the Norfolk four-course system, wheat was grown in the first year, turnips in the second, followed by barley, with clover and ryegrass undersown, in the third. The clover and ryegrass were grazed or cut for feed in the fourth year. The turnips were used for feeding cattle and sheep in the winter. This new system was cumulative in effect, for the fodder crops eaten by the livestock produced large supplies of previously scarce animal manure, which in turn was richer because the animals were better fed. When the sheep grazed the fields, their waste fertilized the soil, promoting heavier cereal yields in following years.