A new study in West Africa shows how farm irrigation systems powered by the sun can produce more food and money for villagers. The study in Benin found that solar-powered pumps are effective in supplying water, especially during the long dry season.
Sub-Saharan Africa is the part of the world with the least food security. The United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization estimates that more than one billion of the world’s people faced hunger last year. Around two hundred sixty-five million of them live south of the Sahara Desert. Lack of rainfall is one of their main causes of food shortages.
Jennifer Burney from Stanford University in California led the study. The research team helped build three solar-powered drip irrigation systems in northern Benin.
Between thirty and thirty-five women used each system to pump water from the ground or a stream. Each woman was responsible for farming her own one hundred twenty square meters of land. They also farmed other land collectively.
The solar-powered irrigation systems produced an average of nearly two metric tons of vegetables per month. During the first year, the women kept a monthly average of almost nine kilograms of vegetables for home use.
They sold the surplus produce at local markets. The earnings greatly increased their ability to buy food during the dry season which can last six to nine months.
Deep in the tropical forests of southern India, the Kolam people were untouched by telephones, cars or television, and they went to bed at dusk because there was no electricity. Their village is still far from a road or a power line. Yet, for the past year, dozens of 40-watt light bulbs have begun to glow in the mud and bamboo huts just minutes after the sun sets. The villagers have found that electricity grows on trees _ specifically the seeds of the Karanji trees in the nearby forest, which they’re turning into biodiesel fuel to power a generator. Instead of going to sleep at sunset, children are now busy practicing their alphabet in the community center each evening, writing their names on black slates and showing them to proud village elders, who never went to school. “Our place has changed a lot,” said Kammeguda’s oldest man, Aathram Maru Patel, who does not recall his age and has never been away from the village. The Kolams gather the seeds from the surrounding forest and take a few hours to extract the oil, using a mill powered by the generator that provides the electricity. There is substantially less pollution than from petroleum-based diesel, and no power bill.
Shrinivasa says the experiment in Kammeguda points to a possible solution of the power shortages that hinder economic expansion in India, home to a billion people. And biodiesel generators also could help cut India’s annual US$18 billion bill for oil imports, he said. Fifty-five percent of all rural households _ 77 million village homes _ do not have electricity. Even in the cities, only 87 percent of people have connections, and there are frequent power outages. For cooking, lighting and heat, most villagers have to use firewood or kerosene, a dirty-burning fossil fuel whose sulfur and carbon monoxide can cause skin irritation and respiratory problems. Kammeguda’s 120 inhabitants have put that behind them.
The villagers of Wagharwadi are experiencing a revolution of sorts on communication front too. Actually a modified solar lamp has changed their lives. This solar lamp has a tiny plug point at the base for recharging mobiles. It is the idea of an electronics entrepreneur Kumaar Thakkar. Earlier the same villagers didn’t show much enthusiasm about solar lamps only. They complained that solar lamps are too costly for them. Its price was Rs. 1,600, roughly amounting to $34. Now almost every household is the proud owner of the solar lamp. Pandhari Nuruti Basme, a 21-year-old who sells solar lamps in the village, expresses his opinion, “After Kumaar sahab rigged the lamps to power mobile phones, they’re in great demand,”
How this modified solar lamp has caught the imagination of villagers? Imagine if you want to talk to your friends or near and dear ones, you have to take a walk to another village which has phones. Or if you have a mobile of your own you have to walk to another village to charge your mobile and have to pay a fee for charging. Sometimes one has to walk for an hour one way! Now Shivram Bhagat, a 23-year-old who ferries people from Kasara to Goti, has three ‘mobiles’! Once the villagers got news of the ‘mobile-charging batti’ (lighting device), not only an upsurge in the lamp sales was reported but mobile phones too! “Eight of the 17 houses in Wagharwadi have mobiles,” Bhagat says. “We have pre-paid connections and monthly top up for Rs 50.”
A solar oven or solar cooker is perfect for areas where energy is at a premium, because it is relatively simple and it uses sunlight as its energy source. It is also beneficial in that it prevents the unecessary cutting of wood for fuel, thus slowing down deforestation and desertification. For these reasons, humanitarian organizations are continually promoting its use in less developed areas of the world.
