Clean Water | Solar Irrigiation
In the Sahel region of Africa, drilled wells are the most reliable source of water available. This most commonly happens with hand pumps like discussed in this blog. However, there are some situations like in Sector 30 of Ouagadougou & Poundou, Burkina Faso the desire to have a larger agricultural area led to a bigger system.
These two spots had unique situations, and I’ll do a quick highlight of each as a bit of a case study. Sector 30 is a part of Ouagadougou where disabled people and widows tend to live. It’s a place where people who have been forgotten by their families because they’re unable to contribute often congregate. A pastor in the area decided he wanted to help the people by employing them. After working with Engage Burkina to get start up set, they began growing animals & vegetables. To make it easier for those with disabilities to work a solar irrigation system came into play as they implemented a gravity fed drip irrigation set up. This makes it so they no longer have to carry many buckets of water around the area to take care of plants.
The sector 30 garden has turned into quite the business which currently sells produce & eggs to various restaurants around Ouagadougou. They’re also the main supplier of some specialty eggs which the ex-pat targeted restaurants love & pay a higher price for.
The Poundou Bible & Agricultural School is the site of another solar irrigation system. This school teaches young men the proper way to grow crops & had been struggling to feed the students w/ their families via a couple hand dug wells on the property. They were looking for a way to teach the men better farming practices while also growing more food. In 2014 a 1,000 liter solar system was installed on a well which fed 9 spigots around the garden. This system allowed them to expand their yield exponentially and instead of barely feeding their students & faculty were now selling excess in local markets. This enabled the school to better serve their students. Shortly there after the decision was made to add another 1,000 liter tank onto the system which gives them even more opportunity to work without having to wait for the well to refill said tank.
These are just a few examples of the impact which can be had through a solar irrigation system. While it has the ability to do a lot, it comes with a great cost. The systems in Burkina Faso cost around $27,000 to install while also having higher maintenance costs due to parts which must be brought in from other parts of the region.