In agriculture, monoculture is the practice of growing one crop species in a field at a time.[1] Monoculture is widely used in intensive farming and in organic farming: both a 1,000-hectare cornfield and a 10-ha field of organic kale are monocultures. Monoculture of crops has allowed farmers to increase efficiency in planting, managing, and harvesting, mainly by facilitating the use of machinery in these operations, but monocultures can also increase the risk of diseases or pest outbreaks. This practice is particularly common in industrialized nations worldwide. Diversity can be added both in time, as with a crop rotation or sequence, or in space, with a polyculture or intercropping (see table below).
Continuous monoculture, or monocropping, where farmers raise the same species year after year, can lead to the quicker buildup and spread of pests and diseases in a susceptible crop.
The term "oligoculture" has been used to describe a crop rotation of just a few crops, as practiced in several regions of the world.[2]
The concept of monoculture can also extend to (for example) discussions of variety in urban landscapes.[3]
- ^ Pandey, D.K; Adhiguru, P; De, H K; Hazarikaa, B N (2021). "Permaculture to monoculture in shifting cultivation landscape of Mizoram, Northeast India: Are agrobiodiversity and happiness waning?" (PDF). Indian Journal of Traditional Knowledge. 20 (2): 479–485.
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Compare:
Denison, R. Ford (2012). Darwinian Agriculture: How Understanding Evolution Can Improve Agriculture. Princeton: Princeton University Press (published 2016). p. 3. ISBN 9780691173764.
Regionally and globally, we practice oligoculture, relying mainly on only a few crops, particularly corn (maize), wheat, and rice.
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For example:
Gomez, Rafael; Isakov, Andre; Semansky, Matthew (2015). Small Business and the City: The Transformative Potential of Small Scale Entrepreneurship. Rotman-UTP Publishing. Toronto: University of Toronto Press. pp. 15–16. ISBN 9781442696518.
[...] the idiosyncratic nature of what an urban main street can offer local residents stands in sharp contrast to the predictable monoculture of contemporary retail development.