Profitable farming requires a reliable and affordable water supply for irrigation as water plays a crucial role in determining loss or profitable harvest. The irrigation must be cost-effective and sustainable for profits to be realized.
Solutions
Electric, petrol or diesel-powered pumps are the most used by farmers to pump water from sources such as rivers and boreholes into a tank or onto the farm directly.
Most of the time, the cost of pumping water goes up due to the fluctuating price of electricity and petrol or diesel.
Farmers spend a lot of money to pump water using electric machine yet there are cheaper options of pumping water for irrigation, which include solar and windmills. Several farmers have however embraced solar pumps to pump irrigation water.
Solar pumps
Solar pumps are economical because they can directly use a technology known as PV array (without a battery) to pump water into the tanks, which is then distributed to the farm by gravity.
The solar system operates on the principle of photovoltaic (PV) technology, which converts sunlight to electricity for the machine to pump water. The cost of setting up a solar system depends on the size of the gadget.
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For instance, a 120-watt solar panel can pump 10,000 litres of water at five metres depth and 3,500 litres at 10 metres depth, which is adequate to irrigate half an acre.
Installation of electricity definitely costs higher depending on the distance from the transformer.
Reduces the tough task
A solar pump thus offers the farmer long-term relief as one does not incur monthly bills.
Submersible solar pumps can be installed below dams which collect rain water. The pump pushes the water to a maximum height of 20 metres. Surface pumps are placed above the ground and are primarily used to move water through the pipelines.
Eco friendly
Besides being low maintenance, solar water pumps are eco-friendly as they do not release any gases into the atmosphere.
There are smaller solar water pumps for the small-scale farmer in the market, thus farmers have no excuse not to irrigate their farms affordably.
Having a water pump reduces the tough task of carrying water physically from the source to irrigate your crops.
