Ecosystems

Agriculture for the whole world!

Amidst the wealth and diversification of the tropical forests, man has found many plants to exploit.
Two thirds of the plants grown for food all over the world come from the Tropics. 99% of the natural rubber produced all over the world comes from one single Amazonian tree, the Hevea brasiliensis; cotton (Gossipium spp.), vanilla (Vanilla planifolia), pepper (Capsicum spp.), cocoa (Teobroma cacao, Central America), potato (Solanum tuberosum), coffee (Coffea arabica, Africa), tomato (Lycopersicon esculentum), rice (Oryza sativa, Asia), maize (Zea mays, Latin America), sugarcane (Saccharum officinalum, New Guinea) are just some examples of products now used all over the world. Very many are also the delicious fruits exported all over the world and now grown in the West as well. They include oranges, tangerines, grapefruits and other citrus fruits (Citrus spp., Indo-Malaya), watermelons (Cucurbita spp., India), bananas (Musa paradisiaca, perhaps from the Afro-Asian Tropics, pineapples (Ananas comosus, central and Southern America, coconuts (Cocus nucifera, south-east of Asia and Asian-Pacific area), papayas (Carica papaia, Mexico and Costa Rica), mangoes (Magnifera indica, India and Indochina).