I've seen a bunch of press recently (at least the kind of press I read) about how monoculture is bad ecologically because it makes pest control harder (i.e. if a thing that eats wheat finds your 100s-of-acres-big wheat field it will go to town and breed like mad), reduces habitat for wildlife (critters thrive with biodiversity, especially the big critters), depletes soil and therefore requires increased fertilization (different crops need different nutrients and some kinds of crops actually put nutrients back - i.e. nitrogen fixers), and increases shipping distances (yes, let's grow all the rice in California and then ship it all to China!).
And all of those are good points and I agree with them. But there's one thing I keep distinctly NOT seeing and it surprizes me that it hasn't been brought up. And that's the issue of labor. Monoculture is also bad for farmworkers. There were two distinct things I recall hearing in the past several months that finally made this click in my head.
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