Sophie Barnhorst
10/15/09
Biodiversity, the Cure
“We should preserve every scrap of biodiversity as priceless while we learn to use it and come to understand what it means to humanity.” Quoted by Edward Osborne Wilson, also known as E.O. Wilson. E.O. Wilson is an American biologist, naturalist, author, and researcher. Most of his research includes the topic of biodiversity. Wilson has won the Pulitzer Prize for General Non-Fiction twice and is well known for his advocacy for environmentalism.
Today we are literally shaped by what foods we eat. Some go the organic route while others are unaware of what they are putting into their bodies. For the longest time our food system has been structured so that we mass-produce everything, the corporations run everything, and all of the farms are only raising/growing one thing. Biodiversity, through polycultures and seasonal rotation, is essential not only in helping our growing food crisis, but it is the key component to solving our environmental problems.
If you were to take an aerial shot of most of the Midwest you would see patchwork of corn. Farmers own different sections of that patchwork but they are all growing the same thing. Corn. But what happens when something comes in and completely wipes out your entire field. What happened then? That is just one reason why monocultures are not the way of the future. Polycultures on a farm can support more than one species and potentially use less fossil fuels because each component on the farm is contributing positively. Now if a farmer would raise cows in one row, vegetables in another row, herbs in another row, and flowers in the last row, it wouldn’t be subject to complete wipe out. If a pest came in and decided to wipe out that farm, potentially only one row would be effected and the farmer would not be devastated and left with nothing. In that case farmers turn to pesticides in order to keep their farm alive.
In any ecosystem you would never find just one species living in a habitat. A habitat is made up of many living creatures that all support each other in some way to live. Whether it may be herbivores and carnivores in the same habitat. By having cows, vegetables, herbs, and flowers all on the same farm, there is less need for fertilizer because the cows would be contributing nutrient rich organic matter to the soil. If cows are kept in the same place on a farm throughout the entire year, they will use up all the nutrients in the soil. By taking advantage of seasonal rotation, those cows would be moved every season to ensure that the organic matter is spread out on the whole farm.
Polyculture farms are essentially habitats for many living organism. If a farmer is growing flowers along with his or her vegetables and cattle, he or she is creating an environment for bees and other insects that play a vital role in keeping harmful pests out of crops. You will never find monocultures in any ecosystem because there is no stability without diversity.
Our food system even monocultures our meat production. You see pigs, chickens, and cattle in tiny pins with no breathing room what so ever. This happens because corporations want to make more money on each cattle or pig or chicken that they have so they pack them all in one space. Through biodiversity this can change. By having many things being raised on a farm, a new habitat can form.
