Waterpump

When the rain doesn’t fall: a family with a smallholding can water their field with a
foot-powered water pump.

Smallholder families in poor countries are fighting even today to ensure that their children have daily meals, school education and basic medical care. Climate change is making their life even more difficult. If it rains very irregularly or not at all, then the harvests are poor or can even fail completely. The consequences: increased poverty, hunger, flight.

The foot-powered water pumps save the smallholder farmers energy and work time. Water doesn’t have to be brought onto the fields in buckets and watering cans from a well; instead the fields are watered directly via a system of hoses. Even the pedal mechanism, which uses the farmers’ own bodyweight, makes the work easier.

The improved irrigation increases the agricultural productivity. This enables the smallholder farmers to cultivate a variety of crops, even in the dry period, and bring in an even better harvest, depending on the capabilities of the wells.