Mehmood Ul Hassan

In: UA Magazine 7 - Economic Aspects of Urban Agriculture

In many low income countries, municipalities often lack necessary physical, financial, institutional and regulatory means to safely dispose of wastewater. On the other hand, farmers in urban and periurban areas find wastewater to be a valuable resource to grow high value crops. Wastewater becomes especially precious for farmers in water scarce situations. Unless effective regulatory mechanisms are enforced, the users of wastewater tend to ignore social costs as long as the private gains from wastewater agriculture exceed private costs. This paper presents data from a case study from Pakistan's southern Punjab, and estimates private and social gains from wastewater agriculture and compares these to the freshwater agriculture. The paper argues that by adopting more farmer-inclusive approaches to wastewater disposal by the planners, both the private and social gains could be maximised.