No impact to monocultures.

AS SOMEONE who spends far too much time reading academic journals and far too little talking to real people, I find it fascinating how different the actual meaning of terms can be to how they are often used in popular culture. It is like the Alanis Morissette interpretation of “ironic” compared with, well, what the word actually means. Ironically, kind of ironic, you might say.

Of all the terms with colourful interpretations that I see used in conversations, in the media and online, perhaps the most common is “monoculture”, especially in the field of environmentalism. Far from this just…

being the boring pedantry of a science geek, as a passionate conservationist, I think it is crucial that we know what this word actually means if we are to avoid environmental own goals. So here we go…

Monoculture is often used as a quick internet byword for “bad” when it comes to food and sustainability. Immediately bound up in narratives on the overuse of pesticides, fertilisers, water and land, the frequency with which biodiversity loss, depleted soils and industrial agriculture are used in the same sentence might lead you to think that they are synonyms for monoculture.

It can also be used as a sort of tribal label, too. If you follow social media skirmishes between carnivore and vegan diet activists – though it is probably best not to – you will find that monoculture is a word used by both sides to discredit opposing dietary views. Yet surprisingly, mixed into all of this are environmentalists using the term to actively push for changes that can be seen as being in direct opposition to their stated aims.

So what is monoculture in reality? Agriculturally, it just means an area composed of a single crop, rather than a mix of them. Instead of being a modern, industrial spectre, it is a practice that is as old as agriculture itself, and not without good reason. Focusing on just one species makes everything from sowing to harvesting easier and more efficient for the farmer, allowing much higher yields of crops from a given area of land.

This efficiency can often extend down to resources like fertilisers and pest control measures, meaning farmers can – theoretically, at least – use agrochemicals at the minimum levels they need to be effective. Yes, biodiversity in these fields is lower, but the higher yields and lower resources needed mean that significantly more mouths can be fed from far less land, leaving more space for nature elsewhere.

“Instead of a modern, industrial spectre, monoculture is a farming practice that is as old as agriculture itself”