There really isn't an alternative, unless, of course, you can get the vegans and the Asians to stop eating tofu--good luck. It is not practical to even consider clean-row cropping with human labor, and the volume of soy bean production necessary to meet demand means it is a major industry, world-wide.
What you mean by "what is native there" is rather unclear. If you mean the midwest, certain portions were prairie, and certain others were forest. When the aboriginals lived in the forests, the land was what is known as sylvan park land. Generations of their primitive agricultural methods kept tree size and density low, because they would band trees to kill them, then burn off the underbrush, and farm around the village until the soil grew exhausted, them move on. It was similar to the European primitive farming method known as swidden farming. Early French explorers, such as Hennepin, Marquette and Joliet describe vast prairies filled with bison and elk, and sylvan park land (although they did not, of course, use that expression) with an abundance of game. Peoria means "place of the fat beasts" and the Illinois valley was rich in game and a good farming region for the aboriginals.
On the lower Illinois, near its juncture with the Mississippi, a great city once existed, estimated to have had a population of 20,000 in the 11th and 12th centuries. This was Cahokia . . .
An artist's rendition of the ancient city.
The Cahokia mounds today.
Such a population concentration was only possible because of the abundant fish and game, and the agricultural possibilities. It was the largest city north of Mexico in pre-Columbian times.
