Economic Viability of Edible Sugarcane Cultivation under Drip and Flood Method of Irrigation: A Field Level Analysis

An attempt is made to explore the impact of sugarcane cultivation by using field level survey data from Tamil Nadu. Besides a rapid decline in irrigation water potential and low water-use efficiency in flood irrigated sugarcane cultivation, drip irrigated sugarcane has been studied in this paper. Under drip method of irrigation (DMI), it not only saves a substantial amount of irrigation water but it also helps to enhance the productivity of crops. The study has found that the water saving, productivity and profitability of drip irrigated sugarcane are high about 55, 21 and 103 percent respectively when compared to flood irrigated sugarcane. Further, electricity saving of sugarcane under DMI is high with 836 kwh/acre over flood irrigated sugarcane cultivation. Using a discounted cash flow technique, drip investment in sugarcane cultivation is found to be economically viable even without subsidy condition. The ’t’ test has statistically proved that gross cost of cultivation, water and electricity saving, gross value of output, cost of production, productivity and profitability of sugarcane cultivation of DMI farmers are significantly higher than FMI farmers. Finally, the study suggest that there is an urgent need to spread the benefits of sugarcane cultivation under drip irrigation among the farmers by strengthening the quality extension service programmes, awareness campaigns and also providing wide publicity on a continuous basis, which would restrain the distress of the farmers too.