An economic analysis of farming in fluoride contaminated groundwater locales in tamil nadu

Abstract

newline Groundwater is a prime source for human intake, agricultural and industrial uses in newlineseveral regions around the globe. Continuous depletion of groundwater is a global threats that newlineprimarily affects agriculture sector through contamination in groundwater such as fluoride newlinedischarge in water. Fluoride is one of the critical ions that negatively influencing the newlinegroundwater quality. Anthropogenic interventions such as overuse of phosphatic fertilizers in newlinethe farmers field, brick manufacturing industries, over deepening of well are the lead sources newlinefor the release of fluoride in ground water as well as the environment and it is becoming newlineworldwide problem. India annually extracts around 251 cubic kilometre of ground water which newlineis 52 per cent of the total global annual extraction of groundwater and also 90 per cent of newlinegroundwater is used for irrigation that covers 60 per cent of the total irrigated area. High newlineconcentration of fluoride is often above 1.5 mg/l, results in severe problems in agriculture, newlinehuman and animal health. In Tamil Nadu, Agriculture sector is one of the most important newlinesources of income for the people and utilization of water sources in agriculture is about 75 per newlinecent. In Tamil Nadu, 23 out of 33 districts were affected by fluoride contaminated water. newlineThough there are several empirical studies on agriculture related to soil degradation and water newlineerosion, but only few studies have dealt with problems in the agricultural sector caused by newlinefluoride contamination in Ground water. The current study is to estimate economic losses such newlineas crop productivity, net returns, human and animal health expenditure due to use of fluoride newlinecontaminated groundwater. The growth and productivity of many crops are also adversely newlineaffected by fluoride which includes the effect of fluoride in paddy and maize that lead to newlinesignificant reduction in yield. The specific objective of the study is to estimate the cost and newlinereturns and technical efficiency of major crops in fluoride contaminated and unc