ABSTRACT
In this chapter we review means of achieving forms of tropical agriculture that not only are more productive than those that exist traditionally, but also are capable of providing high-quality diets and of being sustained both economically and environmentally. We will argue that most recent changes in tropical agriculture have been driven by a need to feed a burgeoning human population, and have therefore primarily consisted of attempts to increase productivity, rather than attempts to improve dietary quality or sustainability. These recent changes have been largely successful in meeting the immediate needs of growing numbers of people, but they have left unaddressed longer-term issues of quality of life and sustainability of the agricultural systems. We will pay special attention to these latter aspects of agricultural intensification, not because we seek to belittle the major achievements of recent efforts at increasing agricultural productivity, but because we fear that a single-minded preoccupation with productivity will leave tropical peoples vulnerable to reliance on economically unsustainable forms of agriculture and a deteriorating environmental resource.
