What binds all human societies is the need for survival and supplying our most basic needs, food for survival. From the richest to the poorest, food security is an issue of great importance to us all. The agricultural industry has a net worth 2.4 TRILLION globally (according to croplife.com as of 2015). Additionally, the agricultural industry is a large contributor to global warming and climate change. You would think that the industry is pumping out a large variety of many different crops, but in reality, only a few plants actually make up our main food supply. The major crops that feed us are wheat, rice, maize, a soybean. The issue is that these are usually grown in large monocultures. By cultivating a single crop using one specific type of method, that entire supply is vulnerable to disease or insects which could jeopardize the 2.4 trillion-dollar industry and our food supply.
We have seen monocrop supplies get wiped out in the past like potato blight and the Irish famine in the 1840s which lead to many deaths, rice blight in the 1960s which lead to 80% yield loss in certain areas of South East Asia, and the southern corn leaf blight epidemic in the 1970s and the Gros Michel banana and Panama Disease.
The banana situation serves as a warning that our old methods must be changes. When Panama Disease wiped out the Gros Michel bananas, there were billions of dollars lost. The industry switched to the Cavendish Banana which was resistant to the disease. This worked for a while but the variant strain of the Panama disease as re-emerged and the Cavendish is no longer resistant. Finding another resistant plant and growing it as a monoculture is not feasible for the future.
Sustainable farming
Sustainable farming is a complex concept that can be simplified by thinking of the future. This involves employing practices that will ensure there are resources remaining for future use.
- Permaculture: aims to promote biodiversity by implementing a diverse range of crops, keeping the ecosystem strong and well protected.
- Rotating crops and embracing diversity
- Applying integrated pest management
- Building and maintaining healthy soil
Following the theme of sustainable agriculture, a new research field has developed, agroecology. This is the study of ecological processes as it applies to agricultural production systems. This ideology supports farms that are small and have low level of input to find a balance between economically profitable production and sustainability of the natural resources. According to the Report of the Regional Meeting on Agroecology in Sub-Saharan Africa, the employment of agroecological practices increased agricultural yields without any negative impacts on the environment
Applied Plant Ecology Winter 2020 
