Tom,
How much more prevalent to diseases and pests are grasses that live in the high heat/ high humidity/ monsoon conditions of places like Malaysia, or Vietnam, or Thailand? It doesn't seem that unlikely to me that 10x more chemicals are in use, especially where there is less regulation and more easily (or cheaply) corrupted officials that will look the other way.
There are quite a few stories, from organizations like the Vietnamese News Agency and others, that attest to the problems development has brought upon farmers, how much land gets lost to them, water supplies that have been diminished, how many people depended on the lost land/water for survival, etc..
I'm not anti- development, but it's too easy to find these articles and stories about the problems of development, including golf development, in Asia and elsewhere. It always seems to be affecting the poorest of people, the ones with the smallest voices.
I see that GEO has a very limited presence in Asia vs. Europe. What is that marker at their site, China? Seems like there is a need for at least 10x the number of companies like GEO on the Asian continent.