Economic and Resource Impacts of Drip Method of Irrigation on Okra Cultivation

Abstract

Drip method of irrigation (DMI) introduced relatively recently in India has proved to save sizeable water and augment productivity of crops. Studies conducted mostly on high-value fruit crops have confirmed the various benefits of DMI. However, not many studies have brought out the economic and resource impacts of drip irrigation including its benefit–cost pattern using survey data in crops like okra (ladies’ fingers) which is an important vegetable crop in India. In this article, we have made an attempt to fill this gap by using farm survey data collected from a water scarce district of Tamil Nadu state. We found from this study that DMI can reduce about 15 per cent of cultivation cost, save about 47 per cent of water resources and electrical energy, and augment about 49 per cent of productivity of okra over the same crop cultivated under conventional flood method of irrigation (FMI). Farmers cultivating okra under DMI are also able to generate an additional farm business income of ₹72,711/acre over the non-drip adopters. The net present worth and benefit-cost ratio estimated using different discount rates corroborate that investment in drip irrigation is economically highly viable for okra crop cultivating farmers.