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Agricultural monocultures refer to the practice of planting one crop species in a field. [15] Monoculture is widely used in intensive farming and in organic farming.In crop monocultures, each plant in a field has the same standardized planting, maintenance, and harvesting requirements resulting in greater yields and lower costs.
In agriculture, monocropping is the practice of growing a single crop year after year on the same land. Maize, soybeans, and wheat are three common crops often monocropped. Monocropping is also referred to as continuous cropping, as in "continuous corn." Monocropping allows for farmers to have consistent crops throughout their entire farm.
Monoculture is the practice of growing a single crop in a given area, where polyculture involves growing multiple crops in an area. Monocropping (or continuous monoculture) is a system in which the same crop is grown in the same area for a number of growing seasons.
A monoculture is a crop grown by itself in a field. A polyculture involves two or more crops growing in the same place at the same time. Crop rotations can be applied to both monocultures and polycultures, resulting in multiple ways of increasing agricultural biodiversity (table).
Pawpaw trees growing under mulberry trees, a forest gardening style of polyculture. In agriculture, polyculture is the practice of growing more than one crop species together in the same place at the same time, in contrast to monoculture, which had become the dominant approach in developed countries by 1950.
A study for the U.S. Office of Technology Assessment concluded that regarding industrial agriculture, there is a "negative relationship between the trend toward increasing farm size and the social conditions in rural communities" on a "statistical level". [67] Agricultural monoculture can entail social and economic risks. [68]
In agriculture, resistance through variability is compromised, since genetically uniform seeds are planted under uniform conditions. Monocultural agriculture thus causes low crop diversity, especially when the seeds are mass-produced or when plants (such as grafted fruit trees and banana plants) are cloned.
Sustainable agriculture is farming in sustainable ways meeting society's present food and textile needs, without compromising the ability for current or future generations to meet their needs. [1] It can be based on an understanding of ecosystem services. There are many methods to increase the sustainability of agriculture.