How to Irrigate On A Shoestring
Flood irrigation: that's how poor farmers in developing countries usually water their crops. It's wasteful and too water-intensive to work in the dry season, but until recently there haven't been other viable options — a traditional drip irrigation system could cost thousands of dollars.
But social entrepreneurs like Paul Polock and the California-based company, Driptech are working to change this by helping poor farmers set up low-cost drip irrigation systems. Driptech can sell their irrigation system for $30 in places like India, China and Ethiopia, because they use cheaper materials and have developed a new (top-secret) method for punching the holes in the irrigation tubes, according to the San Francisco Chronicle.
As Business Week notes, the technology could be transformative:
Experts say low-cost irrigation could alter the economics of food. Subsistence farmers may be able to grow excess crops they can sell. Countries that rely on food imports could see their dependence on outsiders decline.
The innovation has allowed poor farmers to save "water, labor, and time — all while growing a valuable dry-season crop that greatly increased their annual income," boasts Driptech's website.
Driptech plans to relocate their manufacturing facilities to the countries where their products are sold. The company's blog notes that this "will help support the local economies while cutting out transportation costs and headaches."
Selling redesigned products to the poor can be a profitable business model, as some companies in India have also discovered. (I wrote about this phenomenon in "Selling to the Poor, On Terms They Can Afford"). In line with this trend, Driptech expects to make money while helping poor farmers start to turn a profit of their own.
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