Definition
Farming system where only one crop is grown. In developing world countries this is often a cash crop, grown on plantations, for example sugar and coffee. Cereal crops in the industrialized world are also frequently grown on a monoculture basis, for example wheat in the Canadian prairies.
Monoculture allows the farmer to tailor production methods to the requirements of one crop, but it is a high-risk strategy since the crop may fail (because of pests, disease, or bad weather) and world prices for the crop may fall. Monoculture without crop rotation is likely to result in reduced soil quality despite the addition of artificial fertilizers, and it contributes to soil erosion.
http://www.tiscali.co.uk/reference/encyclopaedia/hutchinson/m0034814.html
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This has advantages and disadvantages that are fascinating to learn about. Personally, I find the diversity often tends to be the key to a long-term sustainable market strategy.
However, Agriculture today is built on the short term strategies due to it's simplicity to manage from the crop to the consumer.
Weakness example one: The Boll Weevil
The boll weevil eats the cotton plant. It wiped out much of the cotton crop in the affected states. Severe economic consequences ensued, because cotton was the main crop, and only one strain of cotton was grown. Farmers faced bankruptcy. Towns failed.
http://www.firstmonday.org/issues/issue7_2/quarterman/
For more reading:
http://www.cnr.berkeley.edu/~agroeco3/modern_agriculture.html
Originally posted by mdhallHasn't crop rotation also got to do with the quality of the soil? That if you rotate crops, it's better for the minerals or something in the earth?
[b]Definition
Farming system where only one crop is grown. In developing world countries this is often a cash crop, grown on plantations, for example sugar and coffee. Cereal crops in the industrialized world are also frequently grown on a monoculture basis, for example wheat in the Canadian prairies.
Monoculture allows the farmer to tailor production ...[text shortened]... quarterman/
For more reading:
http://www.cnr.berkeley.edu/~agroeco3/modern_agriculture.html[/b]
Originally posted by shavixmirhttp://www.cnr.berkeley.edu/~agroeco3/modern_agriculture.html
So, mono-crop thing is basically a poor man's farming (because initially it's cheaper, because you have to invest less in different things)?
Until about four decades ago, crop yields in agricultural systems depended on internal resources, recycling of organic matter, built-in biological control mechanisms and rainfall patterns. Agricultural yields were modest, but stable. Production was safeguarded by growing more than one crop or variety in space and time in a field as insurance against pest outbreaks or severe weather. Inputs of nitrogen were gained by rotating major field crops with legumes. In turn rotations suppressed insects, weeds and diseases by effectively breaking the life cycles of these pests. A typical corn belt farmer grew corn rotated with several crops including soybeans, and small grain production was intrinsic to maintain livestock. Most of the labor was done by the family with occasional hired help and no specialized equipment or services were purchased from off-farm sources. In these type of farming systems the link between agriculture and ecology was quite strong and signs of environmental degradation were seldom evident (1) .
But as agricultural modernization progressed, the ecology-farming linkage was often broken as ecological principles were ignored and/or overridden. In fact, several agricultural scientists have arrived at a general consensus that modern agriculture confronts an environmental crisis. A growing number of people have become concerned about the long-term sustainability of existing food production systems. Evidence has accumulated showing that whereas the present capital- and technology-intensive farming systems have been extremely productive and competitive, they also bring a variety of economic, environmental and social problems (2) .
Evidence also shows that the very nature of the agricultural structure and prevailing policies have led to this environmental crisis by favoring large farm size, specialized production, crop monocultures and mechanization. Today as more and more farmers are integrated into international economies, imperatives to diversity disappear and monocultures are rewarded by economies of scale. In turn, lack of rotations and diversification take away key self-regulating mechanisms, turning monocultures into highly vulnerable agroecosystems dependent on high chemical inputs.
The expansion of monocultures
Today monocultures have increased dramatically worldwide, mainly through the geographical expansion of land devoted to single crops and year-to-year production of the same crop species on the same land. Available data indicate that the amount of crop diversity per unit of arable land has decreased and that croplands have shown a tendency toward concentration. There are political and economic forces influencing the trend to devote large areas to monoculture, and in fact such systems are rewarded by economies of scale and contribute significantly to the ability of national agricultures to serve international markets.
The technologies allowing the shift toward monoculture were mechanization, the improvement of crop varieties, and the development of agrochemicals to fertilize crops and control weeds and pests. Government commodity policies these past several decades encouraged the acceptance and utilization of these technologies. As a result, farms today are fewer, larger, more specialized and more capital intensive. At the regional level, increases in monoculture farming meant that the whole agricultural support infrastructure (i.e. research, extension, suppliers, storage, transport, markets, etc.) has become more specialized.
From an ecological perspective, the regional consequences of monoculture specialization are many-fold:
1. Most large-scale agricultural systems exhibit a poorly structured assemblage of farm components, with almost no linkages or complementary relationships between crop enterprises and among soils, crops and animals.
2. Cycles of nutrients, energy, water and wastes have become more open, rather than closed as in a natural ecosystem. Despite the substantial amount of crop residues and manure produced in farms, it is becoming increasingly difficult to recycle nutrients, even within agricultural systems. Animal wastes cannot economically be returned to the land in a nutrient-recycling process because production systems are geographically remote from other systems which would complete the cycle. In many areas, agricultural waste has become a liability rather than a resource. Recycling of nutrients from urban centers back to the fields is similarly difficult.
3. Part of the instability and susceptibility to pests of agroecosystems can be linked to the adoption of vast crop monocultures, which have concentrated resources for specialist crop herbivores and have increased the areas available for immigration of pests. This simplification has also reduced environmental opportunities for natural enemies. Consequently, pest outbreaks often occur when large numbers of immigrant pests, inhibited populations of beneficial insects, favorable weather and vulnerable crop stages happen simultaneously.
4. As specific crops are expanded beyond their "natural" ranges or favorable regions to areas of high pest potential, or with limited water, or low-fertility soils, intensified chemical controls are required to overcome such limiting factors. The assumption is that the human intervention and level of energy inputs that allow these expansions can be sustained indefinitely.
5. Commercial farmers witness a constant parade of new crop varieties as varietal replacement due to biotic stresses and market changes has accelerated to unprecedented levels. A cultivar with improved disease or insect resistance makes a debut, performs well for a few years (typically 5-9 years) and is then succeeded by another variety when yields begin to slip, productivity is threatened, or a more promising cultivar becomes available. A variety’s trajectory is characterized by a take-off phase when it is adopted by farmers, a middle stage when the planted area stabilizes and finally a retraction of its acreage. Thus, stability in modern agriculture hinges on a continuous supply of new cultivars rather than a patchwork quilt of many different varieties planted on the same farm.
6. The need to subsidize monocultures requires increases in the use of pesticides and fertilizers, but the efficiency of use of applied inputs is decreasing and crop yields in most key crops are leveling off. In some places, yields are actually in decline. There are different opinions as to the underlying causes of this phenomenon. Some believe that yields are leveling off because the maximum yield potential of current varieties is being approached, and therefore genetic engineering must be applied to the task of redesigning crop. Agroecologists, on the other hand, believe that the leveling off is because of the steady erosion of the productive base of agriculture through unsustainable practices (3).
Originally posted by uzlessThe recipe for success in southern Minnesota seems to go something like this.
requires vast amounts of chemical fertilizer to sustain the crop since you are using up the resources in the soil.
You usually rotate the crops to restore nutrients back into the soil.
It's ok short term but costly long term.
As many thousands of acres of corn as you have acres except for the following.
A small 20-40 section for soybeans
A small area for 40 head of cattle.
The rest is all corn, every year.
I've been alive for 29 years. As long I have been old enough to remember, they've been growing corn in the same areas.
One of the main problems with modern farming methods is the non replacement of trace elements within the soil, and hence their eventual reduction in successive crops. You'll still have your produce but their nutritional value is reduced for the consumer.
Considering these trace elements value for aspects of human health, it is unfortunate that consumers think that an apple (or whatever) is the same as any other.
For example in the UK the Chorleywood method of baking bread has meant that cheaper European wheat with less selenium is used rather than the better quality Canadian wheat, with the result that people are more likely to be deficient of a mineral needed for proper immune function.
Diversity in almost any system is the key to health, whether it be plants, people or industry.
Originally posted by Merkhow much chemical fertilizer are they putting on the ground?
The recipe for success in southern Minnesota seems to go something like this.
As many thousands of acres of corn as you have acres except for the following.
A small 20-40 section for soybeans
A small area for 40 head of cattle.
The rest is all corn, every year.
I've been alive for 29 years. As long I have been old enough to remember, they've been growing corn in the same areas.
Originally posted by london nickah yes, forgot about that...thanks
One of the main problems with modern farming methods is the non replacement of trace elements within the soil, and hence their eventual reduction in successive crops. You'll still have your produce but their nutritional value is reduced for the consumer.
Considering these trace elements value for aspects of human health, it is unfortunate that consum ...[text shortened]...
Diversity in almost any system is the key to health, whether it be plants, people or industry.
Originally posted by uzlessAsk yourself how many people in the world need food.
how much chemical fertilizer are they putting on the ground?
All of them.
And how do they get it?
Agriculture.
And how has agriculture been able to keep up with the population boom?
Monoculture agriculture and Chemical fertilizers.
Are there consequences to the shortcuts we have taken?
Yes.
Here's a snippet from Wikipedia and you can always do more specific research on your own:
Global issues
The growth of the world's population to its current figure has only been possible through intensification of agriculture associated with the use of fertilizers. There is an impact on the sustainable consumption of other global resources as a consequence.
The use of fertilizers on a global scale emits significant quantities of greenhouse gas into the atmosphere. Emissions come about through the use of:
* animal manures and urea, which release methane, nitrous oxide, ammonia, and carbon dioxide in varying quantities depending on their form (solid or liquid) and management (collection, storage, spreading)
* fertilizers that use nitric acid or ammonium bicarbonate, the production and application of which results in emissions of nitrogen oxides, nitrous oxide, ammonia and carbon dioxide into the atmosphere.
By changing processes and procedures it is possible to mitigate some, but not all, of these effects on anthropogenic climate change.
Probably going to be human hoisting themselves by their own petard.
It ends up decreasing genetic diversity, and ensures that crops need massive amounts of fertiliser, pesticides, genetic modification or all three. When we've either run out of fuel, destroyed the surrounding countryside or leaked genes into the environment, we've left ourselves without food.
It's the genetic weakness I'm most worried about, bananas will be a sign of things to come.