This book is an effort by FAO to compile an up-to-date, comprehensive text on rural structures and services in the tropics, focusing on structures for small- to medium-scale farms and, to some extent, village-scale agricultural infrastructure. The earlier edition, entitled Farm structures in tropical climates. A textbook for structural engineering and design, published in 1986, has been used for over two decades as a standard textbook for teaching undergraduate and postgraduate courses on rural structures and services in universities throughout sub-Saharan Africa.