ABSTRACT
This chapter shows that poverty was determined by social, economic and climatic factors, and proposed the hypothesis that economic development was liable to increase agricultural degradation. The occurrence of poverty in the world is determined by social, economic and climatic conditions. Few people would dispute the importance of social and economic factors in the uneven distribution of wealth, but few also would acknowledge that climatic factors were of much consequence in determining who was rich and who was poor. The chapter describes following hypothesis: that, in a temperate region, agriculture is stimulated by increased demand; in a tropical region, increased demand results in the degradation of agriculture. Uncovering the soil will have other adverse effects; high intensity rainfall causes severe leaching of salts, not only of the nutrient minerals, but also of silicon salts and destruction of soluble clays, which are removed to lower soil horizons leaving Iron and Aluminium salts at the surface.
