We know that our current agricultural system is in long term trouble. As in it depends on fossil fuels for fertilizers, uses a lot of poison, which destroy the natural support system and destroys the soil. We know that fossil fuels are going to run out and that at that point we need the natural support systems and good soil again. However as a society we do basically nothing about it. Hell our current best attempt at a new idea solution is to burn a hell of a lot of fossil fuels to run some giant AI data centres to somehow solve it, without actually having any sort of idea how exactly that is going to happen. Again the very fossil fuels, we know are going to run out.

Compare that to sacrificing a child for better crops. That did not happen every year, but when the group was worried that a crop was going to be bad. At that point it removes a person, which the group has to feed, which makes it possible for the group as a whole to survive. The religious part is done, so the people feel better about it. Certainly a hard choice, but a better one the collective suicide, which is what we are going towards today.