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Worldwide more human beings gain their livelihood from agriculture than any other endeavor; the majority are self-employed subsistence farmers living in the tropics. While growing food for local consumption is the core of tropical agriculture, cash crops (normally crops grown for export) are also included in the definition. When people discuss the tropics, it is normal to use generalized labels to group together similar tropical areas. Common terms would include the humid-tropics (rainforests); the arid-tropics (deserts and dry areas); or monsoon zones (those areas that have well defined wet/dry seasons and experience monsoons). Such labeling is very useful when discussing agriculture, because what works in one area of the world will normally work in a similar area somewhere else, even if that area is on the opposite side of the globe. Most temperate zone agricultural techniques are inappropriate for tropical areas. The second half of the 20th century saw many attempts to duplicate in the tropics farming practices that had been successful in temperate climates. Due to differences in climate, soils, and patterns of land ownership, these largely failed. When they did succeed they tended to heavily favor farmers with substantial land holdings, as a high percentage of temperate agricultural practices are economically "scale-based" and favor large scale production. This in turn pushed many small-scale farmers on to ever more marginal land, as the better quality land was consolidated into larger farms. ==Green Revolution== The "Green Revolution" is the name given to the most successful agricultural improvement program ever undertaken in the tropics. Funded initially by the Rockefeller Foundation, it aimed to improve corn, rice, and other cereal cultivators – breeding plants that would produce more grain for the same amount of effort. From that point it expanded out to improved basic farming practices, particularly for rice farmers. The growth of crop yields was such that agriculture was able to outstrip population growth — per capita production increased every year following 1950 - with Asia leading the way. One of the more remarkable aspects of the Green Revolution is that the total cost of the program by 1990 was approximately US$100 million, less than what a single Boeing 747 airliner cost in 2005. It can be concluded that the Green Revolution was a success, with only a minor flaw: although the crops gave more yield, they were more subject to disease since this was not a primary concern of the program. In order to address this problem together with an approach to more small-scale farming crops, there is today substantial interest in creating a second Green Revolution, based on sustainable agricultural practices and geared towards (small-scale) farmers with limited financial resources. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「tropical agriculture」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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