Soil health is another matter. Growing only one plant tends to deplete the soil’s nutrients over time, and leaving fields bare for the winter can hasten erosion. Monocrops also provide a friendly home for pests that happen to like that crop, since it shows up reliably, every spring.
Agricultural monoculture upsets the natural balance of soils. Too many of the same plant species in one field area rob the soil of its nutrients, resulting in decreasing varieties of bacteria and microorganisms that are needed to maintain fertility of the soil. The production of a single plant species over a large area also has a negative effect on the structure of the underlying soil. One species of crop means that only one type of root will be available to trap moisture and prevent soil erosion, work that typically requires multiple types of roots.
Washington Post, 9 May 2014
Monocrops: They’re a problem, but farmers aren’t the ones who can solve it.
There are two sides — active, vocal sides — to just about every food-supply issue on the planet. Are genetically modified organisms, organics, pesticides or conventional livestock good or bad? Depends whom you ask. There is one issue, however, that gets universally bad press. Nobody, but nobody, defends monocrops.
I’m not exactly going to step into the breach — this month, monocrops; next month, Stalin! — but I think any discussion of our food supply has to include a look at just what monocrops are, why farmers sometimes choose them, and the degree to which they’re risky.
A monocrop is exactly what it sounds like. A monogamist has one spouse, a monoglot speaks one language and a monocrop is one plant growing in the same place, year after year.
There are two problems with monocrops. The first is that they are not conducive to good soil health. The second is that, when all your eggs are in one basket, you’re vulnerable to a devastating loss; think Irish potato famine. Half of our 300 million farmed acres are planted with corn and soy, and that’s a very big basket.
Of the two issues, famine sounds scarier, but it’s actually less likely to be a problem. Tim Griffin, director of the Agriculture, Food and Environment program at Tufts University’s Friedman School of Nutrition Science and Policy, says our vulnerability is limited, mostly because we don’t eat those crops directly. An event like the drought of 2012 affects meat and dairy (and ethanol) prices, but humans still have plenty to eat. He also points out that staple crops such as corn, soy, wheat and rice provide most of the world’s calories, so it makes sense that they take up a big slice of our farmland.
Crop rotation, even if it’s just the two crops, is one way farmers of commodity crops are balancing the need to keep their farms healthy with the need to grow the plants they can sell. According to the USDA, no-till systems, which help prevent soil erosion and nutrient runoff, are on the rise, and about a quarter of corn acres, and almost half of soy acres, are farmed that way
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MONOCULTURE FARMING IN AGRICULTURE INDUSTRY
Monoculture farming is one of the most disputable topics in today’s agriculture industry. As the world’s population augments in number and the demand for food on the global scale keeps rising, many farmers deem monoculture agriculture to be the simplest solution for satisfying this constantly growing need for victuals. Yet, as with every important issue that has an influence on people’s livelihood, a closer look should be taken at the concept of monoculture farming, at its pros and cons, and on its major alternative – polyculture. This article covers these and some other crucial issues related to the topic. Let’s start from a general point and find out what monoculture farming is in the first place.
WHAT IS MONOCULTURE FARMING?
Monoculture farming is a form of agriculture that is based on growing only one type of a crop at one time on a specific field. In contrast, a polyculture system assumes that a field is sown with two or more crops at a time. It should be noted that the concept of monoculture does not only apply to crops, but to farm animals as well: it consists in breeding only one species of animals on a given farm, be it dairy cows, sheep, pigs, chicken, etc.
When talking about monoculture crops, it is important to note that even if a different culture is planted on a given field plot each year, the concept of growing a single crop on one field at a time is still referred to as “monoculture”.
Having outlined the notion of monoculture farming, let’s see what are the main advantages and disadvantages of this method of growing crops.
ADVANTAGES OF MONOCULTURE FARMING
Increased Productivity And Efficiency
Monoculture planting maximizes the efficient use of soil and local climate conditions. In most cases, farmers select the crop that will thrive best in the local environment. The positive effects of monoculture farming are often seen with such crops as rice (grown in conditions similar to those of wetlands) and wheat (which is grown in flat areas with plenty of sunlight). Plants that can resist or thrive in specific weather conditions (e.g. drought, winds or colder average temperatures) become the focal point of the agricultural monoculture system. In contrast, a traditional farmer is concerned with crop variety and implements a complex schedule of planting, maintenance, and harvesting to maximize the production of different crops. Despite this increased effort, the productivity and efficiency of monoculture farming is usually higher.
Open A Room For New Technologies
When growing monoculture crops, agrarians tend to have some extra time and financial resources to refer to new technologies in agriculture helping them to maximize their agricultural performance. Among the newest technical solutions in the service of farmers are drones, ground sensors, and satellite-derived data. One of the most innovative and comprehensive technologies in this matter are satellite tools that are used for a complex monitoring of specific fields and management of all the stages of sowing and growing crops on them.
Monoculture farming has also a negative effect on such important participants of the natural reproductive cycle as bees and other pollinators. The increasing use of pesticides, herbicides, and other chemical substances in monoculture farming, which are called to maintain the crop growth and the fertility of “impoverished” soils, damages the health of pollinating insects and often kills them. Also, in case of a monoculture planting system, there are a lot of single-plant fields stretching for miles and miles in all directions. In such a situation, pollinators find themselves facing a homogeneous food territory and suffer from deficiencies due to the poor diversity of their diet.
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Here’s Everything You Need to Know About Monocropping (And How It’s Hurting the Environment)
When a farmer decides to plant the same crop in the same place each year, this method kills all the nutrients from the earth and leaves the soil weakened. Due to the weakness of the soil, it is then unable to support healthy plant growth. This causes a chain reaction of the soil structure and quality being so poor that farmers are forced to use chemical fertilizers to encourage plant growth and fruit production.
There is a lot of buzz around monoculture and monocropping. Many farmers have taken to this method of farming their crops as, for them, there are some benefits. However, when it comes to the environment, the benefits are few.
The effects of monocropping can be extremely detrimental to the environment. For farmers and gardeners, planting monoculture crops may seem an easy method to get the job done, but in reality, the adverse effects of monocropping can lead to a number of issues down the road.
What is monocropping?
Monocropping is the agricultural practice of growing a single crop year after year on the same land, in the absence of rotation through other crops or growing multiple crops on the same land, which is known as polyculture. When it comes to popular crops used for monocropping, corn, soybeans, and wheat are three common crops often grown using monocropping techniques.
The method of monocropping allows for farmers to have consistent crops throughout their entire farm. Then the farmers plant their most profitable crop only, using the same seed, pest control, machinery, and growing method on their entire farm, which may increase overall farm profitability.
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Polyculture helps different species of crops complement each other and make better use of soil nutrients. An example of departure from monocultures in the European Union is the “greening” initiative or “green payment”, which consists in providing an annual subsidy to farmers who incorporate planet-friendly approaches and methods of growing crops. Let’s hope that such positive initiatives, both from official authorities and farmers themselves, will only multiply and lead to tangible positive changes in the agricultural sector all over the planet.
