ABSTRACT
Latin America (LA) covers an area of about 20.5 million km2 containing 1 country in North America (Mexico), 7 countries in Central America, 20 countries in the Caribbean, and the 13 countries that comprise South America. The population of LA was estimated to be 535 million in 2002. Anthropogenic disturbances in LA started in the 1500s, mainly by Spanish and Portuguese colonists. As a result of colonization, a wide range of crops were adopted in different regions of LA to adapt to specific soil and climatic conditions. The best agricultural systems (including crops, varieties, fertilizer type and amount, control of diseases, etc.) to obtain high yields with better economic return, mainly for export, are being adopted in several regions of LA, yet large areas remain under native vegetation, of which some have been cleared for agricultural use and others are being managed under shifting cultivation. For these newly cleared areas, few, if any, research data indicate whether the methods used for conversion to agricultural ecosystems are appropriate, and whether indeed this is a suitable region for the specific crops or pasture being established. Yet answers to these questions are extremely important because of the drastic impacts of land-use change and cropping/farming systems on the environment in general and climate change in particular.
