We live in an increasingly fragmented world, with islands of natural habitat cast adrift in a sea of cleared, burned, logged, polluted, and otherwise altered lands. Nowhere are fragmentation and its devastating effects more evident than in the tropical forests. By the year 2000, more than half of these forests will have been cut, causing increased soil erosion, watershed destabilization, climate degradation, and extinction of as many as 600,000 species.
"Tropical Forest Remnants" provides the best information available to help us
understand, manage, and conserve the remaining fragments. Covering geographic areas from Southeast Asia and Australia to Madagascar and the New World, this volume summarizes what is known about the ecology, management, restoration, socioeconomics, and conservation of fragmented forests. Thirty-three papers present results of recent research as
well as updates from decades-long projects in progress. Two final chapters synthesize the state of research on tropical forest fragmentation and identify key priorities for future work.

Within the tropical fruits, the papaya, Carica papaya L. (family Caricaceae Dumort.), is presented as the main representative being cultivated in tropical and sub-tropical areas mostly in developing countries. Papaya's nutritional value, beneficial to health, as well as various industrial applications of their products, led to be economically important for both developing and developed countries. Within this broad field of knowledge, this book aims to contribute to better understanding of the topic. The organization of the chapters and sections is also straightforward; Chapter One presents what papaya is (Carica papaya L.), its taxonomy, distribution, origin and morphology. Closing the first part, Chapters Three and Four show the nutritional and medical values, discussing vitamins, minerals and dietary fibers, the industrial applications of using papaya and various parts of the plant, as a source of proteolytic enzymes and some active compounds reported to antimicrobial, anticancer, amongst other properties, illustrating the fatty acid composition, triacylglycerol profile and papaya seed oil of malaysian papaya fruits. In the second part of the book, the readers should find the relevant aspects of papaya microbiology related to fresh fruits quality and safety and the beneficial effects of microorganisms isolated from papaya, such as some Latic Acid Bacteria strains that have been proposed to be potentially probiotics, as shown in Chapters Five and Six. Finally the book addresses the importance of Integrated Management of the Papaya Ringspot Virus, which is transmitted by several aphid species and could commit 100% of the crop as described in Chapter Seven and the biotechnological strategies for control of papaya virus diseases as show in Chapter Eight.

In most African countries, banana production has been consigned to subsistence production. However, a few countries, especially in Francophone West Africa, have recognised the commercial importance of banana, and have used their special relationship with France to export bananas. This has led to the dualization of the banana sector, with the traditional system existing side by side with a modern sector geared towards export trade. This book is one of the few comprehensive studies that have incorporated both the agronomic and economic aspects of banana production and marketing in Africa. It looks at all facets of banana production, from an historical perspective to the various traditional and modern technologies involved. The marketing aspect covers both the domestic and international trade, with emphasis on the preferential (ACP / DOM Lome Convention) and the open markets of the European Union. The book is a major contribution to understanding the internationalisation of the banana trade and to its ever-increasing investment portfolio, as the backbone of many a developing tropical economy. Although the emphasis is placed on Cameroon, other relevant African, tropical and subtropical banana-producing countries are mentioned where necessary, especially in the export sector where a degree of competition existed. Further, agricultural practices, soils, meteorological and climatological characteristics, pests and diseases, personnel and banana varieties grown, mean that findings in Cameroon are of relevance to other banana-producing countries, especially in Africa. Meanwhile, other African and tropical countries still contemplating entry into banana exports would benefit from the Cameroon experience. The book is of especial relevance to agronomists, entomologists, economists, farm managers, government policy makers, large, medium and small scale banana growers, and students and teachers in universities and schools of agriculture.

In the tropical and subtropical areas of the world, food grains make up the bulk of the diet for most people. Food grains together with fiber and specialty crops are also principal cash producers. It is with these commodities that this Guide for Field Crops in the Tropics and Subtropics concerns itself. The Guide deals with general situations; local applications are beyond the range of this moderate-size volume, but the basic information presented will permit area-by-area adaptations. This concise, up-to-date Guide is composed of 40 chapters. The first four are general introductory chapters, and treat rather extensively the important subjects of climate, soil, cropping, and farming systems as related to the tropics and subtropics. The other 36 chapters are divided as follows: 6 on cereal crops, 9 on food legumes, 6 on oil crops, 7 on root or tuber crops and bananas, 6 on major fiber crops and 2 on other cash crops. These chapters do not attempt to deal with the factors of providing inputs such as national supplies of fertilizer, insecticides and fungicides.

"Banana Systems in the Humid Highlands of Sub-Saharan Africa: Enhancing Resilience and Productivity" addresses issues related to agricultural intensification in the (sub)humid highland areas of Africa, based on research carried out in the Great Lakes Region by the Consortium for Improving Agriculture-based Livelihoods in Central Africa (CIALCA). This book is a valuable resource for researchers, students and policymakers in agricultural economics and international development, covering agronomic, economic, policy, extension, and communication dimensions.

This book on 'Secondary Agriculture' discusses the goal of doubling farmers' incomes. The term 'secondary' has a bearing on climate change adaptation and its mitigation, small farm viability and profitability, food security, nutrition, sustainable utilization of natural resources, and optimal usage of produce from primary agriculture and farm incomes. Promoting secondary agriculture has implications on attaining sustainable development goals, which aim to connect primary, secondary and tertiary sectors by using slack/idle factors of production, such as land and labour, contributing to primary agriculture production, capturing 'value' in primary agricultural activities, and generating additional income at the enterprise level. In context to same, the chapters of this book have been designed to promote secondary agriculture through low-cost skills and technology applications in agriculture and by upscaling knowledge via integrating primary, secondary and tertiary sectors of agriculture. The motivation behind this book is to address the challenges of biotic and abiotic stresses facing the farming community; to increase farmers income through low-cost skills and technology applications in agriculture; to upscale knowledge by integrating primary, secondary and tertiary sectors of agriculture. The food processing sector in India is still in a nascent stage with only 8 per cent of the produce being processed as against 80-98 per cent in case of high-income countries (Government of India, 2008, 2010). The food processing sector is now receiving the boost with the annual growth of 13.2 per cent in registered food processing units during 2004-10 (Government of India, 2011). Against this backdrop, there is a strong need to strategically handle the situation in order to facilitate a self-sustainable and long-run growth of the sector, which is felt possible by focusing on Secondary Agriculture. Though not a panacea for all ailments of the primary sector, but it can definitely drive the growth.

Dating back to the nineteenth-century transplantation of a latex-producing tree from the Amazon to Southeast Asia, rubber production has wrought monumental changes worldwide. During a turbulent Vietnamese past, rubber transcended capitalism and socialism, colonization and decolonization, becoming a key commodity around which life and history have revolved. In this pathbreaking study, Michitake Aso narrates how rubber plantations came to dominate the material and symbolic landscape of Vietnam and its neighbors, structuring the region's environment of conflict and violence. Tracing the stories of agronomists, medical doctors, laborers, and leaders of independence movements, Aso demonstrates how postcolonial socialist visions of agriculture and medicine were informed by their colonial and capitalist predecessors in important ways. As rubber cultivation funded infrastructural improvements and the creation of a skilled labor force, private and state-run plantations became landscapes of oppression, resistance, and modernity. Synthesizing archival material in English, French, and Vietnamese, Aso uses rubber plantations as a lens to examine the entanglements of nature, culture, and politics and demonstrates how the demand for rubber has impacted nearly a century of war and, at best, uneasy peace in Vietnam.

Managing climate variability and change remains a key development and food security issue in Bangladesh. Despite significant investments, floods, droughts, and cyclones during the last two decades continue to cause extensive economic damage and impair livelihoods. Climate change will pose additional risks to ongoing efforts to reduce poverty. This book examines the implications of climate change on food security in Bangladesh and identifies adaptation measures in the agriculture sector using a comprehensive integrated framework. First, the most recent science available is used to characterize current climate and hydrology and its potential changes. Second, country-specific survey and biophysical data is used to derive more realistic and accurate agricultural impact functions and simulations. A range of climate risks (i.e. warmer temperatures, higher carbon dioxide concentrations, changing characteristics of floods, droughts and potential sea level rise) is considered to gain a more complete picture of potential agriculture impacts. Third, while estimating changes in production is important, economic responses may to some degree buffer against the physical losses predicted, and an assessment is made of these. Food security is dependent not only on production, but also future food requirements, income levels and commodity prices. Finally, adaptation possibilities are identified for the sector. This book is the first to combine these multiple disciplines and analytical procedures to comprehensively address these impacts. The framework will serve as a useful guide to design policy intervention strategies and investments in adaptation measures.

This collection of fourteen essays presents a unique comparative analysis of agrarian change in the main rice-growing regions of Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, and Thailand. Its central theme is the interplay between agrarian relations and wider political-economic systems. By drawing on historical materials as well as intensive field research, the contributors show how local-level mechanisms of labor control and accumulation both reflect and alter larger political and economic forces. The key to understanding these connections lies in the structure and exercise of power at different levels of society.
The approach developed in this volume grows out of a set of detailed local-level studies in regions that have experienced rapid technological change and commercialization. This comparative focus calls into question widely held views of technology and the growth of markets as the chief sources of agrarian change. By relating local-level processes to variations in the structure of state power, the history of agrarian resistance, and the particular forms of capitalist development, the authors suggest an alternative approach to the analysis of agrarian change.