The Expansion of Monoculture Farming and its Negative Impacts: Is There Hope? Alena Spreitzer
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f you walk into a grocery store in the U.S. today, you may see aisles filled with fresh produce. Despite this access, the population shopping in cities is largely disconnected from the agricultural systems that help to sustain their lives. Distanced from the food production process, it can be difficult to understand the magnitude of these operations and the problems large-scale farming can cause.
The U.S.’s primary agricultural method is monoculture farming, a system best described as the planting of a single species of crop on the same land year after year. This method began to increase in popularity in 1910, and it reduced the time and effort required to produce crops [3]. The resulting production increase helped support the growing U.S. population. While population growth has slowed to around 1%, monoculture farming is still the predominant technique for feeding the 329 million people residing in the U.S. today [4]. In fact, 442 million acres are used for monoculture farming, which is 1/5 of the U.S.’s total land area [5].
Over the last fifty years, population growth has put immense pressure on our agricultural systems to constantly expand. Since 1950, the human population has increased by 4 billion [1]. While the population has continued to grow exponenThough monocultures are effectially, our food production rate tive at mass-producing a single has begun to slow [2]. This 20th crop, this farming method has century trend created concerns negative impacts on the enviabout the sustainability of our ronment. When only a single food systems and led many scicrop is grown on a given piece entists to develop innovations, of land, the soil has difficulty resuch as monoculture farming, taining the proper mineral conto maximize produccentration. Over time, the soil tion. Though the exis depleted of its nutrients and pansion of these techbecomes less suited for farming. niques has resulted in For example, most crops require an increase of our agsoil rich in ricultural productive shopping in cities is n i t r o g e n capacity, alleviating in order the problem of how largely disconnected to grow. to feed our large pop- from the agricultur- H o w e v e r , ulation, it has created ceral systems that help only a new environmental tain plants, to sustain their lives. such as soycrisis of its own.
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beans, are able to fix nitrogen in the soil to replenish the stores of nitrogen. If a farm routinely plants only corn, which cannot fix nitrogen, the soil will eventually be depleted of nitrogen and nothing will be able to successfully grow [6]. In this way, monoculture farming methods can render land barren and unusable for agriculture, leading to a demand for increased farmland. Since arable land is finite, this decreases the longevity of the monoculture While population farming techgrowth has slowed nique.
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to around 1%, monoculture farming is still the predominant technique for feeding the 329 million people residing in the U.S. today [4].
A d d i t i o n a l l y, monoculture plots require more pesticides and herbicides than a mixed culture plot does. When only one crop is grown in a given area, pests can flourish because of the bountiful food and shelter surrounding them; they thrive in the “resource-dense” setting, wreaking havoc on the crops [7]. As a result, there is a constant need to use pesticides. However, despite increases in pesticide application, there has still been a reduction in crop yield of, on average, 20-30% per year due to pests [8]. This trend demonstrates how monoculture farming not only has a negative
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