My soils prof in school said it best.. "Stewardship of the land is why the soils that have been farmed for Centuries in Europe and elsewhere are the most productive they have ever been today."

We have the land.. and we take care of it.. that is part of the reason why average yields are going up over time. The soil is alive and as you build organic matter you feed all the living organisims that basically turn it into a sponge and contribute to the increases in productivity that occur over time.  This is a chart of US average Corn yields..

http://www.agmanager.info/livestock/marketing/graphs/Crops/Corn/USCornYields.htm

but adjust for the actual yields and the uptrend is mostly the same for soybeans.. wheat.. they all look the same...  If you don't like corn you can raise something else.. most of the ethanol plants in Kansas run on Sorghum.. the majority of which is raised in a rotation with wheat.. which can be no-tilled into the previous crops stubble which is good for many reasons.. cheifly because it breaks the monoculture.

Your land use argument is total BS!!  Which is going to sequester more CO2... unfertilized scrub land or land that is growing a crop?

As far as jobs go... ask the people who live in a town which have a plant what they think.