Monoculture

Monoculture Plantations

What are the characteristics of monoculture plantations?

Features of Monocultures

To be classified as a monoculture, a plantation must fulfil three criteria:

• It is large

• It focuses on a single product

• It caters to distant markets

Monoculture plantations cover large areas of agricultural land with a single crop. Typically, the plantations contain just one variety of said crop, with almost no variation.

Agricultural Shift to Monocultures

Monocultures differ significantly from traditional subsistence farming.

Subsistence farmers grew multiple crops to feed their families. Most excess was stored as a safeguard for the future; excess crops were only sold if the farmer had an excellent harvest.

Monocultures became increasingly prevalent after 1945. Improvements in transport provided access to distant markets, making it increasingly profitable to specialise.

Figure 2 – The UK climate can't support the growth of coffee beans, so the country imports them from abroad. Since the 1960s, most coffee plantations grow using monoculture techniques. Unsplash

Monoculture Plantations in the UK

In the 1970s, wheat monocultures took over from traditional crop rotation.

Crop rotation produced higher yields, so what drove this change?

• Consumer demands and market prices

• Government incentives for high productivity, which could be maximised using monoculture plantations

• Increasing costs of specialised equipment, making it more expensive to grow multiple crops

• Intensification of agriculture

• Continuous cropping, enabling a harvest every season

Monoculture Crops

Three major crops – corn, soybean, and wheat – are often grown in monocultures around the world.

Advantages of Monocultures

What are the advantages of growing crops in monoculture plantations?

• Specialised Production: equipment tailored to a harvesting specific crop saves time and reduces the demand for manual labour.

• Consistent Costs: growing the same crop every year means that the price of seeds, equipment, and fertiliser remains relatively predictable. Plus, farmers don't need to seek new suppliers.

• Government Subsidies: crops produced on monoculture plantations are often subsidised by the government. The subsidisation takes the form of insurance, guaranteeing a minimum selling price despite any decline in market value. Without subsidies, it would be impractical to grow just one crop.

• Simplicity: growing just one crop at a time is easier to manage, and saves farmers time and money.

• High Efficiency and Yields: focusing on one profitable crop enabled high production efficiency, resulting in high yields.

Dangers and Disadvantages of Monoculture

Despite the economic and yield advantages, growing crops in monocultures is unsustainable, and can have detrimental effects on the environment.

Earlier, we learnt that monoculture plantations regularly contain just one variety of crop, with very little genetic diversity. This gives them a high susceptibility to pests and diseases.

As a result of their increased susceptibility to pests and disease, monoculture plantations rely heavily on pesticides and insecticides. This creates a multitude of problems:

• Environmental pollution of waterways, harming aquatic life and leading to eutrophication

• Health problems in the children of farmworkers, such as cognitive impairment, infertility, and increased cancer risks

• Increasing rates of resistance to pesticides and insecticides

• Harming pollinators

Monocultures reduce the amount of organic matter in soil, and can lead to erosion. The soil is less able to absorb rainwater, leading to flooding and an increased need for irrigation. Impoverished monoculture soils support a lower biodiversity than other cropping strategies.

Solution to Monoculture: Polycultures

An alternative to monoculture plantations are polycultures. Do you remember them from earlier? If not, here's the definition.

Figure 4 – An aerial view of a polyculture system in Vietnam. A variety of crops are grown in close proximity. Unsplash

Advantages of Polycultures

• Reduced demand for fertiliser

• Maximises resource use of space and time

• Increases soil fertility

• Stores carbon

• Increased genetic diversity

• Enhanced protection from pests and diseases

I hope that this article has explained monocultures for you. Remember that monocultures are the cultivation of a single crop in a given area. They are efficient and easy to manage, but lead to soil degradation and heavy reliance on chemicals.

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