#monoculture — Public Fediverse posts
Live and recent posts from across the Fediverse tagged #monoculture, aggregated by home.social.
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‘Doves and food and fun’: the fight to save a farming pioneer
#Wakelyns needs £1.2m to save its diverse organic crops and ‘micro’ enterprises including a bakery and honeybee hives
"It’s almost a political project about land use – maximising the #sustainable productivity of the land." - David Wolfe
by Patrick Barkham
Tue 30 Jun 2026 06.00 EDT"The aerial view of Wakelyns matches the experience of visiting it at ground level: in a region dominated by prairie fields of industrial agriculture, here lies a vivid green lung of land. Its sounds and sights in summer – the sleepy purr of the turtle dove, the vivid pink flash of a bullfinch – have vanished from most of the British countryside.
"But Wakelyns is not a nature reserve – it is a thriving farm, a 'living laboratory' for #agroforestry and a hub for innovation and business. It is also under threat, and its owners must raise £1.2m to turn it into a charitable community benefit society.
"The 56-acre former pig farm in Suffolk was bought by Martin and Ann Wolfe in 1992. Martin was a government plant pathologist who wanted to do more innovative research than his employers had allowed. Seeking to farm crops with fewer pesticides, herbicides and fertilisers, he created one of the first agroforestry schemes in Europe.
"Turning productive cereal-growing fields into 56 narrow 'alleys' of farmed land between rows of planted trees had been 'widely regarded as mad', said their son, #DavidWolfe, an environmental lawyer who now runs Wakelyns with his wife, Amanda Illing. 'The farmer who sold the land to them said: ‘You’ve ruined a perfectly good wheat field’.'
"Today, Wakelyns is an inspirational example of agroforestry, which has become official government policy. The government’s carbon delivery plan wants to turn 10% of arable land into agroforestry by 2050, with financial incentives to encourage more farmers to transition into something like Wakelyns.
"The lush trees that divide the alleys are all crops. After more than 30 years, some are tall trees for timber, while others provide #apples, #cherries and #plums. The most lucrative tree crop is #hazel, which is coppiced on a seven-year cycle to produce high-quality hazel stakes for traditional hedgelayers. Each stake is sold for £1.40 and Wakelyns cannot grow enough.
The farm’s motto is '#ResilienceThroughDiversity'. It pioneered the first commercial #lentil growing in the UK, and is still the country’s only commercial #BlackLentil grower. 'If Britain is serious about wanting to feed itself, we should stop growing oilseed rape for biodiesel and grow #pulses,' said Wolfe.
"Wakelyns’ diversity encompasses a uniquely genetically diverse population of wheat and multiple varieties of apple tree. When big orchards, which typically grow a narrow range of apple varieties, complain of a terrible harvest, a mixed orchard such as Wakelyns’ is fine, because every year some varieties thrive. #Monocultural farmers, says Wolfe, 'put it all on red or black'.
"Wolfe and Illing took over the farm in 2020 after Wolfe’s parents died. To the innovative farming principles, they added 'enterprise stacking', bringing people back to the land via a series of symbiotic relationships."
#SolarPunkSunday #Trees #UK #MutualAid #HempTextiles #FoodSecurity #FoodForests #CropRotation #CropDiversity #OrganicFarming #SupportUKFarms #SupportLocalFarmers
#Polyculture not #Monoculture -
So, this is a timely topic! From the latest issue of #InTheseTimes! The connection between Amazon Deforestation and CEO land grabs in the Western United States -- bought with blood money!
Fortress Yellowstone
The #UltraRich are fortifying themselves inside one of America’s last intact #ecosystems—with money plundered from ecological #SacrificeZones around the world
by Joseph Bullington, April 6, 2026
Excerpt: "Some of these ultra-rich ranch owners celebrate the natural beauty of their land and are ardent conservationists when it comes to the Yellowstone ecosystem. In digging into their business dealings, however, I found that most of these landowners accumulated their wealth through industries that help drive the destruction of nature elsewhere. Their ranks include private equity investors, oil and gas billionaires and real estate developers. "[...]
"Now, instead of forests full of fruits and animals and mandioca clearings, industrial soy plantations press in on #Açaizal like a closing fist. There is no escape from the onslaught of #monoculture. Manoel shows me where rows of broken cornstalks run right up against the edge of the community’s soccer field, which the soy farmers also want to plow. The soybeans and corn, like those in the United States, are genetically engineered to withstand the #herbicides and #pesticides the farmers dump on them to beat back weeds and pests, but the chemicals drift, says Manoel, making it impossible to grow fruits and vegetables and #mandioca nearby. The streams run low and full of poison."
Read more:
https://inthesetimes.com/article/yellowstone-billionaires-conservation-montana-deforest-amazon#Billionaires #UberRich #CEOs #AmazonDeforestation #BigAg #SoybeanProduction #IndustralSoybeans #PoisoningTheAmazon #GMOs #Monoculture #Deforestation #Cargill #HomeDepot #SoyPlantations #SaveTheForest #SaveTheRainforest #Earth4All #DSA #DemocraticSocialism #ReadItBeforeItsBanned #TaxTheRich #NoTaxHavens #EatTheRich #YeetTheRich #BigCorporations
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If you, like me, think our monoculture agriculture is skrewed and are losing hope for the future, well, take a look. It's a really good video about #permaculture and #agroforestry. I loved it!
What is Agroforestry? – The Future of Farming
https://youtu.be/njsC4kKFO3s -
Pesticide spray drift from intensive horticulture on the the mid-north coast NSW -
Discontent in the region.Home owners, dairy and beef producers among those concerned about how pesticide use affects their land as well as water quality on the mid-north coast
“Between 2001 and 2016 blueberry farming expanded 400% – mainly around the Coffs Harbour region.”
“This monitoring showed the continued detection of pesticides in most waterways sampled, highlighting the need for ongoing monitoring in the region.”
“Monitoring in the Nambucca valley by the EPA has detected three different pesticides in low levels in three creeks, suggesting water quality in the area is not being impacted by excessive amounts of pesticides.”
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https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2025/oct/09/blueberry-farms-nsw-north-coast-rapid-expansion-development-pesticides
#Pesticides #food #beef #diary #prawns #blueberries #plantations #monoculture #rivers #water #export #runoff #pollution #neonicotinoids #imidacloprid #dimethoate #SprayDrift #CoffsHarbour #Macksville #Nambucca #Woolgoolga #conflict #violence #EPA #regulation #horticulture #industry #tourism #PeoplesHomes #TankWater #governance #MidNorthCoast #NSW #biodiversity #wildlife #extractivism -
Koalas face death, attacks and mass starvation from monoculture plantations
Cost-effective management techniques for Australian wildlife"...Displaced animals were sometimes still up in trees that were felled and ended up with broken bones, or were orphaned babies left behind. Others were attacked by cows or dogs."
"A 2023 study of reported wild koala deaths in south-east Queensland found vehicles were responsible for about half (1,431) of all fatalities."
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https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2025/may/11/koalas-face-death-attacks-and-starvation-as-blue-gums-chopped-down-in-victoria
#biodiversity #wildlife #koalas #LoggingImpacts #LoggingIndustry #harm #pets #Livestock #roads #vehicles #RoadTrauma #KillingZones #plantations #monoculture #extractivism #governance #Australia #extinction -
Pour l’Union des paysans indonésiens, «Michelin a fermé les yeux sur la réalité au niveau local, où les entreprises qui répondent à ses besoins de production ont privé les agriculteurs de leurs droits fonciers.»
#monoculture #caoutchouc #accaparement👉 https://www.bastamag.net/Accaparement-terres-Indonesie-caoutchouc-hevea-Via-Campesina-Michelin