Effect of Tannery Effluent on Agricultural Holdings An Economic Analysis

Abstract

Leather industry improves the economic growth by virtue of its export earning potential, also exerts negative externalities on land and water. This paper aims to analyze the impact of tannery pollution on the land utilization and cropping pattern of the study area. The results of the study revealed that the tannery pollution had adversely affected the land utilization pattern and cropping pattern of sample households due to the letting of effluents to the nearby agricultural lands which compelled the farmers to leave their land as fallow and unproductive. Further, the farmers in the pollution zone could not cultivate commercial crops. The farmers had to grow rain-fed fodder sorghum paying little remuneration, which pushed them to subsistence level of farming and also the cost of sorghum was higher (Rs. 16796/ha) in the affected area than non affected area (Rs. 13249/ha). Nearly 40.00 per cent of tanneries were devoid of anti pollution measures. Tannery units must stop to let out untreated water into agricultural lands and farmers in the area must grow the tolerant varieties with suitable soil amendments.

DOI

https://doi.org/10.29321/MAJ.10.001138

Pages

376 - 380

Creative Commons

Copyright

© The Author(s), 2025. Published by Madras Agricultural Students' Union in Madras Agricultural Journal (MAJ). This is an Open Access article, distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited by the user.

Keywords