Abstract
Tropical and sub-tropical regions contain 51 per cent. of the world's land area. This vast region has potential for producing large amounts of food, but the dominant cropping system, shifting agriculture, which is used in much of the tropics, is highly inefficient. Improved practices are adaptable to crop production in tropical regions. With intensive management, favourable yields of many crops are possible. With various forms of multiple cropping, four or five crops can be grown each year on a given tract of land, thereby resulting in higher total yields per hectare than are obtained with intensive management in temperate regions. Although major advances have been made in developing suitable systems for tropical regions, research is needed to conserve soil and water resources further and to develop practices to improve crop production on the highly acid and infertile, difficult to manage, clay textured soils of the tropics.
