Environmental Cost of Using Top-soil for Brick-Making

Increased urbanisation and industrialisation in developing countries has created a huge demand for construction activities, which in turn has resulted in the fast growth of the brick-making industry. Unfortunately, brick-kilns are mostly situated on fertile agricultural land, as brick manufacturers need silty clay loam to silty clay soils with good drainage conditions. This article quantifies the agricultural impacts of top-soil removal for brick-making using a productivity change and replacement cost approaches, for Tamil Nadu, a southern state of India. To compute the cost, a survey of 100 farmers each was carried out in two regions—in the north (Chennai) and in the south (Tuticorin). Besides, 60 soil samples—30 from each region—were analysed from both types of fields—leased land for brick-making and virgin fields. The crop yield loss due to top-soil removal is found to be much less than expected due to more fertile soil in the region. In the long run, however, the opportunity cost of selling top-soil for brick-making is likely to increase as good quality soils for agriculture become more and more scarce.