The author, who graduated from Wageningen University in the Netherlands in June 1967 and obtained a PhD degree there in April 1982, has spent a lifetime working in a wide range of tropical agronomy-related fields. He started his career in a cotton development project in Indonesia, lectured and carried out research at the Universities of Wageningen, YaoundA(c) (Cameroun) and Ibadan (Nigeria) and played a key role in the introduction of the a ~Farming Systems Researcha (TM) approach in West and Central Africa when working at the International Institute of Tropical agriculture in Ibadan. Since 19...