#monoculture — Public Fediverse posts
Live and recent posts from across the Fediverse tagged #monoculture, aggregated by home.social.
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In UK, a single breaks a very long-time record. Most people don't even know the song.
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10 #IndigenousGardening Techniques Still Used Today
By: Robin Sweetser, May 3, 2026
"As gardeners, we are connected to all people who have come before us, caring for the earth and learning how to best grow crops. Ready for the best gardening techniques? Let’s have a look at some age-old gardening wisdom that’s still relevant today.
A Long History of #Gardening
#Gourds, #beans, and #peppers were being cultivated in #Mexico by 5500 BC, and by 5000 BC, #maize was being grown in #Mesoamerica, and #potatoes in #SouthAmerica. The success or failure of these crops had a major impact on people’s survival. It was critical not only that the land provided sustenance but that it sustained them year after year, which required knowledge of #sustainable growing techniques to preserve the land for future generations.
We hear buzzwords like 'sustainable' or 'permaculture' and 'organic' today. But these techniques were here long before we started talking about 'going green.' Perhaps your grandparents also knew some of the older, gentler ways. Many are simply intuitive and based on fostering a closer relationship with nature and the land. If you don’t already, you might want to think about integrating some of these techniques into your own landscape.
Many of the following practices are often viewed as 'new' to the gardening world, but they’ve been around for a long, long time. They have all been traditionally used by #NativeAmerican peoples, but that is not to say that all of these techniques were used by all Native American cultures. Just like separate countries, #Indigenous cultures vary widely in their gardening philosophies and techniques. Below are just a few #sustainable, Earth-conscious ways to grow a better garden.
These practices originate from diverse Indigenous nations across North and South America, including the #Haudenosaunee (#Iroquois), #Hopi, #Wampanoag, and many others. Agricultural traditions varied widely by climate, geography, and culture.
Companion Planting (the #ThreeSisters Method)
Time-honored gardening wisdom says that certain plants, when grown together, improve each other’s health and yields. For instance, some plants attract beneficial insects that help to protect a companion, while other plants (particularly herbs) act as repellents.
A commonly cited example is the Three Sisters Garden, which has been traditionally practiced by the Wampanoag people of what is now the northeastern United States. A prime demonstration of companion planting at its best, corn provides support for pole beans to climb, the beans add nitrogen to the soil for future crops to use, and squash leaves shade the soil around the taller plants, like a living mulch. Squash’s prickly leaves also deter marauding animal pests. Some would add a fourth sister—a flowering plant such as #sunflowers—to draw in #pollinators.
#Intercropping or #polyculture of plants that have mutual benefits (aka companion planting) mimics the way different species grow together in nature. #Monoculture, on the other hand, leads to the exhaustion of soil nutrients. Indigenous people also discovered that plant diversity meant diet diversity. If one crop should fail, the others could fill that void.
Try 'intercropping' in your vegetable garden. Sneak small crops in between bigger ones; the small crops will be ready before the big ones need the space.
#Terracing for #SoilConservation
Terracing creates flat planting beds in hilly terrain. Taming the steep slopes slows runoff, allowing water to seep into the beds and curb erosion.
Creating terraces in which to garden is an especially good way to garden where rain is seasonal, sporadic, and often comes in heavy downpours. In the southwestern U.S., for example, terracing was key to the agricultural success of the Anasazi and their descendants, the #Hopi, who still use terraced gardens today. This can be seen in the village of #HotevillaBacavi, in northern Arizona, where traditional #TerracedGardens were restored in the 1990s.
If you wish to garden sustainably on sloped land for years to come, the use of terracing is essential in avoiding soil erosion that carries your precious topsoil away.
There are different types of #terracing. If you have a slope, consider using some rocks or retaining walls to create a series of flattened areas, mitigating runoff. Ancient terraces are seen all over the steep terrain in #Greece, too.
Traditional Irrigation Methods
Thousands of years ago, the Anasazi people inhabited what is now the Four Corners region of the U.S., an area known for its low annual rainfall. They traditionally built catchments, check dams (dams made of rock that held onto soil but allowed water to pass through), and reservoirs to collect the infrequent stormwater. The Hopi people of northern Arizona also use these age-old techniques to irrigate their gardens in this arid landscape, although modern technology has allowed for expanded #WaterConservation efforts.
If you live in a dry area, storing water in ponds, cisterns, or even a #RainBarrel is a wise idea, as the reserved water can be used for irrigation as needed.
Conversely, in areas with floods, people learned how to use what could be destructive as a way to boost productivity. For example, one technique was to create shallow depressions so that when the floodwaters rose, the water could be stored. Another technique was to use #canals near rivers to divert water to nearby farmland."
Read more:
https://www.almanac.com/10-indigenous-gardening-techniques-still-used-today#SolarPunkSunday #GrowYourOwnFood #NativeAmericans #TraditionalTechnology #ClimateChangeGardening #TraditionalEcologicalKnowledge #TEK #TerracedGardens #RainGardens
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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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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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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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Humans profoundly reshaped mammal communities on a global scale.
"After farming began, just a handful of livestock species spread with humans and scrambled those natural boundaries, reshaping mammal communities worldwide...Large ungulates like horses and cows are important because they monopolize food resources wherever they are in high numbers...At the same time, many wild mammals went extinct, in each case following human arrival—not during a particular worldwide climate change episode."
"Post-extinction ecosystems have not been truly natural for the last 10,000 years or more, so national parks in the hardest-hit regions, such as Australia and the Americas, lack over half of the native large mammal species that would have been present if not for humans. Over the last 10,000 years or so, humans have overseen the wholesale replacement of native mammal communities with a very limited set of domesticated species."
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How humans reshaped the animal world: Research traces 50,000 years of change
https://phys.org/news/2025-09-humans-reshaped-animal-world-years.html"These findings underscore how human-driven extinctions, agriculture and resource extraction profoundly reshaped mammal community structures. How we manage these interactions today will determine whether mammal communities become resilient or increasingly destabilized."
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Barry W. Brook et al, Late Pleistocene faunal community patterns disrupted by Holocene human impacts, Biology Letters (2025). DOI: 10.1098/rsbl.2025.0151
https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/10.1098/rsbl.2025.0151
#ecosystems #biosphere #biodiversity #wildlife #nativespecies #mammals #holocene #extinctions #disruption #fauna #NovelAssemblages #NPs #nature #ungulates #livestock #HumanDriven #NicheModification #monoculture #Australia #extractivism -
#SemaineAnticoloniale | Table ronde : #Colonialisme par #pesticides ou #nucléaire
https://youtu.be/I-UU2HmSKAM
#agrochimie #agricultureIntensive #monoculture #écocide #lobbyAgroalimentaire #phytovictimes #dioxine #AgentOrange #JusticePourTranToNga #JusticeEnvironnementale #chlordécone #essaisNucléaires #contaminationNucléaire #Brésil #Vietnam #Martinique #Guadeloupe #PolynésieFrançaise #DOMTOM #maladiesProfessionnelles #écologieDécoloniale #luttesDécoloniales