MaMoGH: about the project

Monocultures provide the lion's share of the world's food and a good part of non-food resources. From the corn fields of Iowa to date palms in the Sahara, from chicken farms to eucalyptus trees in the Global South - in the modern era, organic production gravitates towards a reliance on one single species. 

Date palm with fruits at the Abdul Aziz Date Farm in Medina.

The ERC-funded MaMoGH project traces the pathways towards monoculture and looks for recurring patterns and trajectories, common challenges and typical mindsets and thus aims to provide a better understanding of one of the defining challenges of the twenty-first century world.

The research project “The Making of Monoculture: A Global History” (MaMoGH) started in October 2021 with support from a European Research Council Advanced Grant. It seeks to trace the pathways towards monoculture and looks for recurring patterns and trajectories, common challenges and mindsets.

Starting in September 2022, a group of post-doctoral researchers will investigate different agricultural and forest systems in different parts of the worlds with a view to understanding underlying rationales and dynamisms. The overarching goal is to provide a better understanding of monocultures as ecological and socioeconomic trouble spots. The project aims for a history that shows greater awareness of the significance and fragility of our material existence.

It also seeks to address ongoing debates on the modern food system. On a planet that needs to feed eight billion people and more, getting a grip on the problems of monoculture is one of the defining challenges of our time.

The following introductory video was made in April 2021. For additional videos that record the project’s progress, please go to the multimedia center. We list significant events and milestones on the news page, and we have a dedicated page for publications. The latter is still a bit sparse on content, but we are only getting started!