Impact of irrigating with arsenic contaminated water on farmers’ incomes in West Bengal

Madhavi Marwah Malhotra
Additional contact information
Madhavi Marwah Malhotra: Institute for Social and Economic Change

No 431, Working Papers from Institute for Social and Economic Change, Bangalore

Abstract: With high arsenic contamination of groundwater in West Bengal much beyond permissible limits for irrigation water, and institutional measures aimed at enhancing groundwater pumping to meet the growing food requirements in the country, the long-run sustainability of agricultural production and farmers’ livelihoods in arsenic affected areas are under threat. This study undertakes a comparison of the net incomes of farmers earned from crop production between arsenic affected and non- arsenic affected areas’ agricultural situation. To analyse the differences in the agricultural situation in detail, the non-parametric Mann-Whitney U test for comparing two samples is used. In conclusion, the study finds evidence that farmers using arsenic contaminated water for irrigation for over two decades in West Bengal are now facing triple impoverishment on account of having to adopt a less profitable cropping pattern, lower yield of crops and higher input costs per unit of cultivated land area.

Keywords: Irrigation; Arsenic; contaminated; water; Agriculture; Farmers'income (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 31
Date: 2018
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

There are no downloads for this item, see the EconPapers FAQ for hints about obtaining it.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:sch:wpaper:431

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in Working Papers from Institute for Social and Economic Change, Bangalore Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by B B Chand ().