What's Wrong With Monocropping?

Food is vital for life. Without it, you die. It’s been the main reason for several significant wars and conquests throughout the history of time. In the modern world, food has become industrialized. Consumers demand a product that is crafted to their liking. Intended or not, that has played a tremendous role on how humans have and continue to treat nature. The natural is as for from that as it has ever been. One of the biggest reasons for that, is monocropping. Monocropping happens when a farmer plants the same crop in the same place every year. Generally, this is a more profitable way of farming. When I left class on Friday, I didn’t have a firm grasp on the problems with monocropping. In the movie, “the Botany of Desire”, by Michael Pollen, I felt the farmer had done what they needed to do to make a living. It left me asking, what’s wrong with monocropping?

Monocropping happens when a farmer plants the same crop in the same place every year. All in hopes that it creates a consistent form of income each year. Farmers run a huge risk when choosing to monocrop their product. They could suffer the same fate that Ireland suffered from 1844-1849. In 1844, there were eight million people in Ireland. The vast majority of Ireland was of catholic belief. Before 1800, by law catholics couldn’t own land, hold office, vote or even get a formal education. This forced them to become tenant farmers who supplied their own food along with farming food for the people they worked for. A disease that stemmed from Mexico, made its way into the north eastern part of the United States in places like Boston and New York made its way to Europe and of course, Ireland. Potatoes are a food that have great variety, however the various types of potatoes were being exported for a greater profit. A situation that sounds fairly similar to what happens within the food industry today. The famine killed over a million people and forced a million more to find a new home. Ireland lost 25 percent of its population, but it wasn’t because of a lack of food. It was the destruction of one food. All of this information can be found in the video below.

There are several challenges that arise when choosing to grow in monocrop fashion. First, planting the same crop in the same place robs the soil of nutrients, leaving the ground weak and unable to support healthy plant growth. The exact opposite of monocropping, is permacropping. “It promotes biodiversity, and tries to to get the most number of productive species of plant within a plot of land. This leaves fewer species and microorganisms and bacteria on the soil as there are fewer nutrients available for them to survive on.” (https://www.regenerative.com/magazine/six-problems-monoculture-farming) This forces the farmers to do to their crops what would normally take place naturally.

Because of this, farmers must use chemical fertilizers to help plant growth and fruit or vegetable production. “The most common commercial fertilizers are nitrogen-, phosphorus-, and/or potassium-based.” (http://www.sustainabletable.org/804/industrial-crop-production)  These fertilizers, disrupt the natural makeup of the soil and contribute further to nutrient depletion. “Not only do these chemicals leave traces on plants that are intended for human consumption and so can enter the food chain, they are also routinely over-used so that a large proportion of the synthetic material remains in the soil, even after the crop has been harvested.” (https://www.regenerative.com/magazine/six-problems-monoculture-farming)

Many farmers face another problem when monocropping their land. Monocropping creates the spread of pests and diseases, which for the farmers to use more chemicals. (https://www.gardeningknowhow.com/plant-problems/environmental/monoculture-gardening.htm) In the mean time, nature adapts to those added chemicals. Bugs and pests become resistant to the chemical sprayed on by farmers, causing more and more ot be added every year.

The fertilizer used to grow and protect monocrop products has a damaging effect on the environment as well. The obvious, is the biodiversity lost from monocropping. When the 20th century started, an average farm featured five different types of crop. Fast forward 100 years, farms began to average just one type of crop.

The most severe environmental effect from fertilizer being used is water pollution. In most cases, water has to be pumped in and used on crop through irrigation systems. “River, stream, lake, and ocean health are all affected by inorganic fertilizer runoff from industrial farms. Excess amounts of nitrogen and phosphorus in bodies of water create algae blooms and dead zones (areas in the ocean where little or no life is found due to decreases in oxygen levels).” (http://www.sustainabletable.org/804/industrial-crop-production) Adding fertilizer leads to long-term decrease in soil health, including soil acidification. Levels of soil pollutants also rise after it has been affected by fertilizer.

Generally, farmers choose monocropping for economic reasons. I was surprised to learn that “there is a great deal of government support for commodity crop (including wheat, corn, and soy) production through the use of government subsidies.” (http://www.sustainabletable.org/804/industrial-crop-production) According the Cambridge dictionary online, subsides are “money paid by a government to help an organization or industry reduce its costs, so that it can provide products or services at lower prices.” "In a way, this support from the government has led farmers to literally ignore growing healthier crops. This support has “lead to an increase in corn- and soy-fed animals, and increased production of “junk” foods that use corn (e.g., high fructose corn syrup), wheat, and soy as their base, ultimately contributing to the prevalence of health problems such as heart disease, obesity, and type 2 diabetes.” (http://www.sustainabletable.org/804/industrial-crop-production) In a way, the government is promoting the production of a type of food that is killing their own people.

A head scratcher, at best.

For monocropping to end, a fundamental change of how our country views food would have to take place. The food industry would have to be demolished. Government subsidies for monocrop product would have to be removed. Food would have to be viewed as a public right that individuals are responsible for on their own. In countries where food is not commercialized, diseases that American’s fight are nonexistent. From a dining standpoint, the would would have to go back in time to become hunters and gatherers. I don’t think that will happen. Most nights, I can barely gather anything out of my own fridge for dinner

From our book, we learn that “eating entails a host of social, and even global factors that, in their entirety, add up to a complex food system,” (7) The book uses a triangle to demonstrate this that features the words convenience, responsibility and identity at each point. If I had to choose a category to place monocropping, it would fall very closely to convince. The book defines convenience as “variables such as price, availability and ease of preparation, which are all related requirements of energy, time, labor and skill.” (9) Ultimately farmers are trying to make a living and Americans overlook how their food got to their fork.

Generally, farmers choose monocropping for economic and convenience reasons. Their choice makes the natural become less natural than it ever has been. Planting the same crop in the same place every year robs the soil of nutrients, leaving the ground weak and unable to support healthy plant growth. It forces farmers to use chemicals to support the soil, growth and to keep pests and diseases out of their crop. Those chemicals make their way into our bodies in our food. They also pollute the water on this earth. Before the weekend, I felt monocropping was a means to an end. Now I know, that monocropping needs to end.

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