General Profile of Current Agricultural Systems

Abstract

The profound differences in the way in which agricultural systems and practices are shaped by biophysical and socioeconomic factors can be appreciated by looking at three typical scenarios: (1): the highly mechanized and external-input-intensive industrial model of the USA (also countries like Canada) and Western Europe (2): the green revolution model of the fairly developed countries of South Asia, for instance India and China, also Argentina and Brazil of South America (Latin America) and (3) the low-input resource extractive agriculture of the Sub Saharan Africa , like Ethiopia, Tanzania in Eastern Africa and even countries of Central Africa like The Republic of Cameroon, Senegal, Gabon etc. The chapter discusses these aspects I detail.