Global trend: crop diversity at large scale farms declining
19 February 2019
The latest research from the University of Toronto, published in an international scientific journal PLoS One, suggests there is a global trend towards declining the diversity of crops cultivated by large scale farms across the world. The authors analyzed the changes in crop species being grown on large-scale farmlands between 1961 and 2014, based on the data from FAO. According to this research, 50% of the world’s farmland area, operated mostly by large farms across Asia, Europe, North, and South America, is dominated by just four crops - soybeans, wheat, rice and corn. At the same time, more than 150 other crops occupy the rest of the farmland area. As stated by the research team, such decrease in crop diversity has been determined by socio-economic factors and might affect global agricultural sustainability, as well as provoke susceptibility to pests or diseases among crops.