Keaton

= Monoculture =

**What is monoculture?**
  A system that has very low diversity. In agriculture "monoculture" would describe the practice of planting and relying on a small number of plants from the same genetic variants. For example growing one type of potato.

Benefits of monoculture:

 * Reduced plant competition for nutrients, space and solar radiation
 * Control undesirable organisms such as weeds
 * Reduction of cost by limitation of specialized machinery required for arable operation
 * Maximize profit from the growing of high gross margin crops

 Disadvantages to monoculture:

 * Majority of humans diets now come from a single sources such as processed corn or processed soy mostly hydrogenated soy oil which is used in fast food frying
 * Plants are usually grown in mass quantities and shipped from there around the world rising the cost of food
 * Most crops grown are GMO crops and may have devastating result to human health in the future.
 * Because they grow one type of crop they fear disease could override their crop so they spray dangerous pesticides and other weed killers

Why do they monoculture farms require such large inputs of weed kills and pesticides?
 Mostly because they choose to grow a single crop. Bugs and pests from around the world have come by ships and planes because of international commerce and travel. They spray their crops to prevent the harmful organisms from killing their crops, however, they also kill the beneficial organisms that would naturally help kill the ones that are not making them rely on pesticides. Due to the fact that they spray frequently have resulted in "superpests" that are resistant to the pesticides. By using bio-diversity they could eliminate spraying and make a more sustainable farm.