Indian researchers have called in for new ozone pollution standards in India. One of its reasons is the rising levels of ozone pollution that has lead to a loss of $1.29 billion generated from the damage of six million metric tons of India's wheat, rice, soybean and cotton crops in 2005.

This much food could have fed 94 million people that makes around a third of the country's poor.

Sachin Ghude, an atmospheric scientist at Indian Institute of Tropical Meteorology (IITM) in Pune said, "India's ground-level ozone pollution caused losses of more than a billion dollars and destroying enough food to feed tens of millions of people living below the poverty line".

A study done in this area used crop production data of 2005, this year was taken considering it is the representative of the effects of ozone damage over the first decade of the 21st century.

For the study, the researchers largely looked into the following area: effects of high concentrations of ground-level ozone on agricultural in 2005, a plant-damaging pollutant formed by emissions from vehicles, cooking stoves and other sources.

All this research was done to quantify how much damage India's ozone pollution has caused to the major crops on a national level and to encourage the policy makers to craft new ozone pollution standards.

Ground-level ozone is very dangerous, as it formed when nitrogen oxides, carbon monoxide and volatile organic compounds react with sunlight. All these gases are generated from the chemicals' release from vehicles, industry, or burning of wood or other plant or animal matter.

Pollution from all these sources is very common in India and currently there are no air quality standards in the nation that can protect agriculture from the effects of ground-level ozone pollution. So, the study concludes that new ozone pollution standards are the need of the hour for a country like India that has a high rate of poverty.