There is no wise backward-looking nature-state we can return to that wouldn't involve a sharp decrease in the population, which is sustained by chemical-fueled agriculture. We're pretty much stuck with artificiality and technological relationships with our world unless we want to stop feeding a couple billion people.
The article isn't arguing for that. It doesn't present some "past" that the author wants to go back to. It is stating that the best way forward is not to continue what we're doing now.
A third of food production on this planet done by smallholders, and the easiest way to make sure the other two-thirds doesn't get wasted is to change the distribution system (not with technology). It should not be used to make high-fructose corn syrup in the US. It should not be grown in Arizona to feed cattle in Saudi Arabia. The technology is a sticking plaster over our dumb world, and it is falling off
But if you try to look deeper into such advice, it falls apart. What does it actually mean? Let's stop being individualistic consumers and return to tightly knit families? Let's have direct relationship with soil and animals and make our own organic high quality food?
Then you realize most of our ancestors fled from both of these situations at the first opportunity.
The issue is the human population explosion and its consequences on the environment and use of resources.
Everything else is either trying to blame "the system" for ideological reasons ("capitalism is bad", "Westerners are bad"), or trying to cope by squeezing quality of life ("don't travel", "don't eat meat", etc).
