The abundance of plant pests in the tropics, including weeds and disease, makes agriculture successful mainly in the plantation system, where needed control measures can be financed. The alternative is to move from deteriorated land to newer fields; this practice of shifting agriculture has also been common, because tropical soils lose their productive capacity so rapidly.
The history of agricultural growth and mechanization in some of today's industrial countries illustrates this generalization. In 1880, factor endowments differed widely among these countries, with Japan having only 0.65 hectares of land per male worker and the United States about forty times as much (see Binswanger and Ruttan 1978, tables 3-1 and 3-2).

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The abundance of plant pests in the tropics, including weeds and disease, makes agriculture successful mainly in the plantation system, where needed control measures can be financed. The alternative is to move from deteriorated land to newer fields; this practice of shifting agriculture has also been common, because tropical soils lose their productive capacity so rapidly.
The history of agricultural growth and mechanization in some of today's industrial countries illustrates this generalization. In 1880, factor endowments differed widely among these countries, with Japan having only 0.65 hectares of land per male worker and the United States about forty times as much (see Binswanger and Ruttan 1978, tables 3-1 and 3-2).

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