Monoculture is Needed

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Centuries ago, the farming technique was only one: the rotational crops. For each season, people planted new seeds that would grow in the conditions given by the whether. After some time, the soil would rest and prepare for future cropping seasons. However, this is no longer the case, or at least it is no longer the only farming technique. Technology has made possible agriculture to grow, and to develop new techniques and types of crops. The most important new agricultural technique is monoculture, which is the single-species crop.
Monoculture refers to the practice of cultivating an agricultural species or tree under conditions where other species are absent or virtually absent. This is done in order to lessen the intensity of competition on growth of the desired crop species. (Freedman)
Furthermore, now there are different types of monoculture. Probably the most common one is the monoculture for plantations. It is basically the use of huge areas to plant one species, usually of big plants or trees. Due to the high costs of production that this type of plants have, monoculture for plantations is less rigorous than other types, and smaller plants may be tolerated as long as they do not compete for resources with the crop. In contrast, genetic monoculture is the most extreme way of monoculture. In this type of crops, diversity is not only narrowed down to a single species, but to a single genotype, making all individuals genetically uniform (Freedman). All of these would not have been possible without countless advances in genetics and biotechnology, which, according to the UN`s Convention on Biological Diversity, is “any technological application that uses biological systems, living organisms, or derivatives thereof, to make or mo...

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Marais, A., et al. "Effects of monoculture, crop rotation, and soil moisture content on selected soil physicochemical and microbial parameters in wheat fields." Applied and Environmental Soil Science. (2012): n. pag.
Academic OneFile. Web. 20 Nov. 2013.

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Perez, Genaro. Personal interview. 27 Nov. 2013.
Rojas, Pedro. Personal interview. 27 Nov. 2013.
Torres, Rafael José. Personal interview. 22 Nov. 2013.
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