monoculture

thumb|Monocultural potato field In agriculture, monoculture is the practice of growing one crop species in a field at a time. Monocultures increase ease and efficiency in planting, managing, and harvesting crops short-term, often with the help of machinery. However, monocultures are more susceptible to diseases or pest outbreaks long-term due to localized reductions in biodiversity and nutrient depletion. Crop diversity can be added both in time, as with a crop rotation or sequence, or in space, with a polyculture or intercropping. Monoculture practices have been linked via several pathways to negatively impact human health from a One Health perspective. These links include but are not limited to environmental degradation, increased pest and disease outbreaks, greater pesticide/herbicide use, and reductions in dietary diversity (associated with diet-related disease burden including cardiovascular disease and diabetes).

Monocultures appear in contexts outside of agriculture and food production. Grass lawns are a common form of residential monocultures. Several monocultures, including single-species forest plantations, have become increasingly abundant throughout the tropics following market globalization, impacting local communities.