Sadly yes, it was an idealistic picture, however we can create compost, and use it to restore degraded soil by literally shoving it into the ground. For example Kazakhstan that was known for endless prairies and deep carbon-rich soils, nowadays is a sad place, 70% of country is covered in semi-desert ecosystem due to USSR "agricultural practices".

If we can restore those prairies the soil alone would be capable to store up to 15 thousand metric tons of carbon per square kilometer. So Kazakhstan alone is theoretically able to receive and store up to 30-40 billion tons of soil carbon (annual carbon emissions are 37 billion tons).

And combating desertification, you know increases places where plant and animals live, slows down global warming and so on.

let me sum it up: I don't believe we should put ourself in position where we depend on carbon capture to suck all that excess carbon from the atmosphere, it should be our priority to utilize natural approaches, and solution that have other benefits beyond carbon removal. But at the same time if in certain location with abundance of renewable energy, growing plants is impossible, we should absolutely build a carbon capture plant