PARSING DOLAN

The crushing effects of environmental degradation in many developing c ountries cannot be ignored. The traditional explanations of fragile la nd, poverty, overpopulation, and ignorance of farmers do not justify t he extent of the resource depletion. Instead, agricultural resource ab use in developing countries often reflects the abuse of political powe r. It grows out of underlying maldistributions of power among farmers, between farmers and nonfarmers, and between farmers and their own gov ernments.