Winrock organized two-day knowledge exchange workshop jointly with NACCFL and Renewable Energy for Rural Livelihood Programme/Alternative Energy Promotion Center

Winrock International, NACCFL and Renewable Energy for Rural Livelihood Programme/Alternative Energy Promotion Center jointly organized two-day Knowledge Exchange Workshop on Solar Water Pumping (SWP) System including field visit to SWP system installed site on 20 – 21 January 2019. The event was organized as part of Knowledge Exchange to make SWP affordable to Small Farmer project funded by WISIONS.
A total of 53 participants (21 female and 32 male) attended the workshop. Chairperson, Manager and other board members from eight SFACLs, Ward Chairperson, engineers and senior agricultural officer from (rural) municipalities, representatives from six SWP system supplier companies, farmers having installed SWP systems and Manager of SFACL who promotes SWP , representatives from NACCFL, Livelihood Expert from AEPC/RERL and Winrock International project team participated the workshop.

The first day of the workshop was organized at Darcy’s International Hotel, Butwal Municipality and a field visit to SWP site was organized in Ratanpur, Bharatpur Municipality on the second day. Ms. Resha Piya, Senior Program Officer from Winrock International delivered a presentation on SWP system technology, its working principle, advantages, disadvantages, impacts and business models and financial models to install SWP system. Four farmers with installed SWP systems for dairy farm, homestay, sugarcane farming and vegetable farming under Winrock’s Accelerated Commercialization Solar Photovoltaic Water pumping (AC-PVWP) project shared their experiences, success stories, challenges of using SWP system. In addition, six solar companies shared their business proposition including SWP product details, size, price, warranty, financial schemes from the company etc. On the second day, field visit was carried out to SWP system installed site for practical observation on how the system functions and interact with the farmer on its use and benefits.
The workshop was very successful on sharing knowledge and experience of promoting and using SWP systems.