Amazed Farmers Delighted About Solar Water Pumping

Winrock International, under USAID supported “Accelerated Commercialization Solar Photovoltaic Water Pumping” (AC-PVWP) project, conducted demonstration and marketing of PVWP systems at Mainapokhar village of Bardiya District and Matiya village of Banke District on 10 & 11 November, 2016 respectively. The events were organized in collobration with USAID’s KISAN project and SunFramer Nepal. KISAN project supported selecting demonstration venues and coordinated with its beneficiary farmers for praticipation in events.

SunFarmer Nepal displayed several types of solar water pumping systems with water discharge ranging from 5,000 lpd to 100,000 lpd. Number of people, mostly farmers, gathered at both demonstration sites. The impact was amasing: the farmers were astound and supprised on varities of available technologies. “We were born too early, vast technologies are emerging day by day that could help us to alleviate our hardship and solve our irrigation problems” accentuated an old farmer visiting the demonstration event. Numerous queries about technology, its avaibility,  price and financial schemes from farmers were attended and explained.

Though solar based irrigation solutions are financially competitive compared to a diesel based pumping technology on a long run, the lack of information and knowledge on the technology is one of the key barrier for farmers to adopt the technology. “If you had asked me before if a solar pumping was the right solution to our challenge, then I may have been a little skeptical, however after seeing on-the-ground demonstration of this system it completely changed my perception. Now I am keen to installed this environmentally sustainable system and replaced it with the fossil based technology” said one of the farmer visiting the event. He also mentioned that his farm yield last year decreased due the embargo faced by the nation. However, as he rightly pointed, with this technology, they (farmers) don’t need to worry a lot about where and how to obtain imported fuel.

These two demonstration events again proved that they are crucial in attracting attention and creating awareness among people, particularly farmers, about the technology. Farmers shows renewed interest and welcomed that the technology can provide a cost-effective, promising and a reliable solution for sustainable agriculture to increase the farm productivity. There exist still a great hope and farmers without any hesitation are willing to install the system if sound market based financial mechanism and business models are ensured.