[Cleburne]

Rainforest soil is considerably different from, say, American tallgrass prairie soil. I understand that it is quite difficult to sustain crops on former rainforest lands.

[Chemnitz]

Tropical soil burns up organic matter quickly. The re-introduction of organic composting came from the need to make the soil last longer in India. The Indore method was to combine soil with manure and leafy matter to make compost. Of course composted manure was used in Europe. They used to say in rural Germany, "Marry a girl with a big pile of manure." The manure was a sign of animal ownership and hence prosperity.

[blam]

"Rainforest soil is considerably different from, say, American tallgrass prairie soil. I understand that it is quite difficult to sustain crops on former rainforest lands."

This is true. The nutrients are concentrated in the absolute top layer of soil, that is why so many trees there have large expanded bases. The trees do not have deep roots (no nutrients there) so the trees have large bases for stability and also to spread out as far as possible to gather the nutrients in the thin top layer.

None the less, when Coca Cola bought out Minute Maid, they also bought 12% of the land area of Belize to grow citrus. (The Florida crops are subject to unexpected freezes, that's no way to run a business.)

[ThanhPhero]

In large areas they did live in the woods but they farmed the woods, encouraging food producing trees and removing weed trees in Eastern North American and in Amazonia. Modern incidental agriculture is like that in SouthEast Asia. There are orchards and there areas of forest where the trees have been cultivated for centuries by clearing out the competition and trimming the food trees.