This summer I'm working with the solar startup Ecoprise to help bring solar-powered agricultural services to subsistence farmers in the Terai region of Nepal. As I write this, farmers in rural Nepal are preparing for the approaching monsoon season. Nearly two thirds of Nepal’s working population is made up of farmers, who rely extensively on the rainy summer season for irrigation given Nepal’s isolating topography and lack of infrastructure. Even with significant rainfall, rural farmers have difficulty maintaining their farms due to the high costs associated with pumping groundwater. This loss of productivity often prevents farmers from breaking out of a cycle of poverty. Thankfully, the emergence of solar- powered agricultural services could help reverse this trend and ensure that rural farmers can cultivate their land year-round.
In Nepal, only 40% of the country’s population - mostly in urban areas - has reliable access to electricity. In rural areas, that falls to a staggeringly low 5%. Despite this, Nepal benefits from more than 300 days of sun per year. The combination of Nepal’s natural solar capacity, plus its lack of electrical infrastructure in rural areas, makes it a prime target for solar-powered agricultural services.
In 2015, Ecoprise partnered with the International Center for Integrated Mountain Development (ICIMOD) and SunFarmer - two nonprofits operating in Nepal - to provide photovoltaic (PV) panels water pump infrastructure projects in the Terai region district of Nepal. The sites were monitored over the course of the following year, with increasingly positive results. By using the solar-powered water pumps these farmers were able to irrigate 24% more land during the winter months and 29% more land during the monsoon season. It also reduced the use of diesel- powered water pumps by 75% - saving the average farmer ~$500 per year.
Despite these encouraging signs, there is quite a distance yet to go. The farmers that participated in this pilot program tended to have more land, better access to irrigation, and own more pumps than the average Nepali farmer. In order to ensure equity of access, it will be critical for private enterprises and non-profits to work together to ensure solar-powered agricultural solutions can be made affordable for the farmers that could benefit most from the technology. Solar-powered agriculture presents an opportunity to raise the living standards of millions of rural Nepali farmers in a sustainable fashion - it would be a shame to waste it.
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