The idea for this book developed when the Third International Congress
of Ecology planned for Poland in 1982 had to be cancelled. In the two
previous Congresses (1974, 1978), ecological research in agricultural ecosystems
had begun to emerge as an important area of activity. I had been
asked by Frank Golley, current President of the International Association
of Ecology (INTECOL), which organizes the Congress, to plan a symposium
on research in agroecology for the 1982 Congress. After the cancellation,
I began to organize this book. Interestingly, in 1982 most of
the research in this emerging field was taking place in so-called "developing
countries" of the tropics. It seemed as ifthe value of an ecological
approach to agriculture had gained early recognition in tropical areas of
the world, because of the combined pressures ofthe tropical environment
and the necessity to develop food production systems that depended less
on the purchase of costly, usually imported inputs.