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Is specialisation or monoculture in agriculture or horticulture good or bad?

April 26, 2017Agriculture bad Environment good horticulture monoculture specialisation

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Is specialisation or monoculture in agriculture or horticulture good or bad?

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Monoculture is good for agri-business and supermarkets – lots of chemicals & equipment to buy and uniform product supplied to timetable. diverse cropping is better for the farmer and the consumer. Nature which has had millenia to maximise output (growth) from local environment never relies on a single species. Permaculture or agro-forestry or forest gardening seek to copy this and to maximise the resources nature provideds for free, eg earthworms as pointed out by Darwin http://darwin-online.org.uk/EditorialInt… who questioned the sustainability of then new chemical fertilisers. especially important in fragile environments like Nepal where mono-cropping leads to erosion and debt/dependance on world markets (and undercutting by subsidised Indian/Chienese rice) http://www.npg.org.np/home/about_npg.