4 ms·

The truly baffling thing to me, is I swear one of the hardest emphasized lessons in grade school was on the dangers of a monoculture. And yet, the vast majorit

by taeric 4y ago

The truly baffling thing to me, is I swear one of the hardest emphasized lessons in grade school was on the dangers of a monoculture. And yet, the vast majority of farming seems to just double down on it. Worse, non-farming does to. So many societies and institutions seem to try and build up the equivalent.

pixl97 4y ago
It's just an advanced form of 'hand to mouth' existence, maybe we should call it 'capital to wallet' The fact a crash will come tomorrow doesn't stop most actors from doing what's going to profit them the most today.
- taeric 4y ago
  I think it is a little more nuanced, in practice. For a lot of amazing progress and such, the short term doubling down on something seems to make a ton of sense. As such, for the individual farmer and all, risky idea. For the town and the society, they can often ride the reward with minimal exposure to the risk. My personal pipe dream is that we found a way to not load so much downside of risks on individuals. Which seems to be what we do.
- blowski 4y ago
  It’s another example of “the tragedy of the commons”. Each individual actor is acting in their own short-term interest, at the expense of everybody’s long term interest.
Zababa 4y ago
It is the same thing as centralization/decentralization. Centralization is more efficient (economies of scale and other things) but more fragile.
acchow 4y ago
I am seeing a renaissance in Apple varieties. Coffea is not a monoculture. Will other fruits and vegetables follow?
jandrese 4y ago
The problem is that monocultures enjoy great economies of scale, and it's extremely difficult to fight the market. The little farmer who grows a variety of crops is out-competed by the corn growing neighbor who has relatively cheap specialized equipment and seeds available to allow him to work ever larger and more productive fields for year after year. The little guy ends up closing shop before the neighbor gets wiped out by some highly specialized pathogen. As John Maynard Keynes noted, "Markets can stay irrational longer than you can stay solvent." Monocultures might be a bad idea in the long term, but for immediate profits they cannot be beat.
- searine 4y ago
  The threat of monoculture is overblown. Yes if your entire society relies on one staple crop that has low diversity and no pest management, you are at high risk, but that is not modern society. If the cavendish is wiped out, people would barely notice. Even if it happened with corn, it would be disruptive, but not catastrophic. Our food system is too diversified to really collapse from one disease.
  - taeric 4y ago
    I grew up near a statue to the boll weevil. So, exactly. It can happen. Does even. Rubber trees, if I'm not mistaken, are another good example. Doesn't mean that specialization can't have obvious benefits.
    - jzebedee 4y ago
      Enterprise, AL?
      - taeric 4y ago
        Yeah. I was actually "close" as in the same State. So, not right next to it. Did visit it, if I remember. (Granted. I "remember" a lot of things I didn't fully do. Maybe we just had a class that talked a lot about it. :D )
  - 4y ago
sclarisse 4y ago
The problem with bananas specifically is that if you don’t have a seedless product, you don’t have a product to sell at all. https://commons.m.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Banana_cross_section.png https://commons.m.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Banana_cross_secti... And that means monocultures propagated from cuttings.

by taeric 4y ago

pixl97 4y ago

It's just an advanced form of 'hand to mouth' existence, maybe we should call it 'capital to wallet' The fact a crash will come tomorrow doesn't stop most actors from doing what's going to profit them the most today.

taeric 4y ago
I think it is a little more nuanced, in practice. For a lot of amazing progress and such, the short term doubling down on something seems to make a ton of sense. As such, for the individual farmer and all, risky idea. For the town and the society, they can often ride the reward with minimal exposure to the risk. My personal pipe dream is that we found a way to not load so much downside of risks on individuals. Which seems to be what we do.
blowski 4y ago
It’s another example of “the tragedy of the commons”. Each individual actor is acting in their own short-term interest, at the expense of everybody’s long term interest.

Zababa 4y ago

It is the same thing as centralization/decentralization. Centralization is more efficient (economies of scale and other things) but more fragile.

acchow 4y ago

I am seeing a renaissance in Apple varieties. Coffea is not a monoculture. Will other fruits and vegetables follow?

jandrese 4y ago

The problem is that monocultures enjoy great economies of scale, and it's extremely difficult to fight the market. The little farmer who grows a variety of crops is out-competed by the corn growing neighbor who has relatively cheap specialized equipment and seeds available to allow him to work ever larger and more productive fields for year after year. The little guy ends up closing shop before the neighbor gets wiped out by some highly specialized pathogen. As John Maynard Keynes noted, "Markets can stay irrational longer than you can stay solvent." Monocultures might be a bad idea in the long term, but for immediate profits they cannot be beat.

searine 4y ago
The threat of monoculture is overblown. Yes if your entire society relies on one staple crop that has low diversity and no pest management, you are at high risk, but that is not modern society. If the cavendish is wiped out, people would barely notice. Even if it happened with corn, it would be disruptive, but not catastrophic. Our food system is too diversified to really collapse from one disease.
- taeric 4y ago
  I grew up near a statue to the boll weevil. So, exactly. It can happen. Does even. Rubber trees, if I'm not mistaken, are another good example. Doesn't mean that specialization can't have obvious benefits.
  - jzebedee 4y ago
    Enterprise, AL?
    - taeric 4y ago
      Yeah. I was actually "close" as in the same State. So, not right next to it. Did visit it, if I remember. (Granted. I "remember" a lot of things I didn't fully do. Maybe we just had a class that talked a lot about it. :D )
- 4y ago

sclarisse 4y ago

The problem with bananas specifically is that if you don’t have a seedless product, you don’t have a product to sell at all. https://commons.m.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Banana_cross_section.png https://commons.m.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Banana_cross_secti... And that means monocultures propagated from cuttings.