Based on over twenty years of first-hand research, this book explores the nature of the interrelationships among agricultural growth, rural poverty, environmental degradation, and participatory rural institutions in India. C.H. Rao looks at the spread of agricultural growth to less developed regions, and the subsequent decline of real poverty; the decline of real public investment in agriculture; and the increasing levels of environmental degradation due to the slow rate of land replenishing technological change. In his analysis, Rao demonstrates the implications of this tangled network for the future of development strategy and policy in the context of the on-going economic reforms.