Environmental Sustainability of Some Cropping Systems in the Humid Tropics.

Abstract

One of the greatest challenges facing agriculture in the tropics is the need to develop viable cropping systems for the rained uplands that are capable of ensuring increased and sustained crop production with minimum degradation of the non- renewable soil resource base. Increased population has reduced the effectiveness of shifting
cultivation and other Traditional systems for sustainable farming and this gave way to improved practices. Cropping systems, therefore aimed at maintaining soil fertility with reduced effects on the environment. The main cropping systems in the humid are influenced
by climatic situation and the type of crop grown, which mainly depend on crop diversification. Results from most findings reviewed in this paper had shown that there was no one size fits cropping system that can be use for sustainability of the humid environment but the best approach was the diversification of both traditional and modern cropping systems. The transition to systems which are both sustainable and sufficiently intense to support the increasing density of human population calls for attention on the cropping systems to be adopted. Hence, this paper focuses on exploring some cropping
systems management for their sustainability in the humid tropics.

African Research Review Vol. 2 (3) 2008: pp. 262-277