Hardbound. This book examines how agriculturalists and ecologists look at field-crop ecosystems and attempt better management of these systems with the aid of computer modelling. Most of the book describes an array of the world's most important systems in detail but using language suited to readers who are not familiar with agricultural technology. Each chapter presents a slice in time of environmental, human and technical attributes of a particular cropping system along with the social and cultural background which contributed to that particular system.The topics of the chapters dealing with individual field-crop ecosystems were chosen to represent most of the important agricultural systems and a wide variety of climate zones.