ABSTRACT
Anyone who has seen pictures of denuded and barren hillsides could be forgiven for believing that the ‘need to stop erosion’ is the obvious solution to the problem of land degradation and that if farmers are reluctant to adopt recommended soil conservation technologies, they need to be persuaded otherwise. An analysis of the conventional soil conservation approach, however, suggests that the concept of soil conservation per se, with its focus on the control of soil erosion may be both technically flawed and inappropriate to social and economic conditions in rural communities.
