This week I have been visiting Renewable World’s programme interventions in South Asia and it is really inspiring to see how our partners are using renewable energy to help transform livelihoods in rural communities in Nepal.
Our work to promote economic enhancement in rural agricultural markets in Nepal is striking both because of the incredible income increases potentially possible at an individual and household level but also because of the unique role that renewable technologies have to play in the formation of an appropriate and enterprising technical solution.
A female farmer in Nagdanda, Kaski with her crops which have benefited from increased irrigation thanks to a solar powered pump.
We are working with local partner IDE-N to establish energy systems which will pump water using solar technologies over 50 metres in high and up to 200 metres in distance. The ultimate recipients of the water, local agricultural farmers , will use it to grow crops, nursery seedlings or other commercial agricultural products for sale. The famers will pay the energy business a fee for the water supplied; the company will use that to pay for management, maintenance and future replacement and other long term business sustainability costs. Farmers sell their produce through a co-operative structure, sending the produce to market through collection centres; if they are business savvy they will time the sale of produce to benefit most from the best off-season market prices, and therefore increase their profit.
A female farmer weighing her vegtables at the collection centre in Lumle, Kaski
Renewable World has committed to creating six energy generation systems over the next year, all in areas of extreme poverty and geographical isolation, to help stimulate agricultural market activity and ultimately enhance economic profitability of some of the poorest people on the planet