Monoculture bad. Diversity good.
I would just add that, in many ways, many of our agricultural (and other
survival) strategies, including everything from genetic engineering to
hand-hoeing or pulling of weeds, are dependent upon near-monocultures.
Further, it appears that "few-cultures" - i.e. depending not on one, but on
six or eight major crops, is still a dubious ecological (or sustainable)
plan. 'nuff said.
Second, which you did not directly hit is the concept of *habitat*
management, instead of individual or few-species management. This is one
thing our (not so WIDE open) brains seem to struggle with. The concept not
of trying to beat and kill every "enemy" organism, but simply providing a
"healthy" habitat for our "desired" ecology seems to be understated in most
agricultural methods (even many "organic" or "alternative" schemes) as in
most of our methods of living... In the end, the biggest challenges we face
may not be providing food for our (billions served) bodies, but food for
thought...
Wish us all well,
Steve
*********************************************
Steven G. Hall, P.E.
Natural Resource Engineer
Biological Systems Control Engineer
Sustainable Agriculturalist
Local and Global Ecological Engineer
Experiential, Environmental and Outdoor Educator
College of Agricultural and Life Sciences, ABEN
Cornell University, Ithaca, NY 14853
telephone:(607)256-5408 fax: (607)255-4080
e-mail: sgh1@cornell.edu
web site: http://caep.aben.cornell.edu/sghhome.htm
********************************************