NextBillion.net - Development Through Enterprise - Guest Post: What It Means to be Patient - Drip Irrigation in Pakistan's Thar Desert - Comments

Preservation of Investments in Micro-irrigation

TRinAZ, CID — Thu, 03 Jul 2008 08:06:40 -0400

At $500 per acre, even in California, buys all the in-field components of a pretty nice drip system. There are many things that come to mind as I visual what the system might consist of, such as: taking care to protect the dripperline from getting contaminated so it can last for several years. Also, to understand the impacts of water quality on dripperline; where acid injection may be essential. Like mobile pump/filtration stations (short moves to keep it in full time operation). Like crop rotations. Such as the cost of seed oil fuel versus cost of diesel fuel. Like seed oil fuel species selection. Like reservior lining, sizing and reservior maintenance. Like soil moisture sensors and plant-sap nitrate monitoring (for water and fertilizer management). On balance, all may help extend the life of the investments.

Pakistan can really increase

Anonymous — Tue, 01 Jul 2008 07:25:15 -0400

Pakistan can really increase its food yield if people change their mindset and use proper irrigation that is already being offered by companies such as Dadex. (http://www.dadex.com/product_services/Zarkaasht/index.shtml)

Guest Post: What It Means to be Patient - Drip Irrigation in Pakistan's Thar Desert

Rob Katz — Wed, 14 May 2008 13:00:00 -0400

Guest blogger Sasha Dichter is Director of Business Development at Acumen Fund. Before joining Acumen, Dichter held senior positions in the corporate citizenship departments of GE Money and IBM. He earned a B.A., M.A., and M.B.A., all from Harvard University.

By Sasha Dichter

Today, we had the pleasure of meeting with the MicroDrip team to discuss their drip irrigation systems being rolled out in the Thar desert region of Pakistan. Dr. Sono is the visionary founder of the Thardeep Rural Development Program (TRDP), which is incubating MicroDrip as a for-profit to serve poor farmers living in the desert. TRDP, the non-profit, provides support services, like education and training, to these farmers.

This is my second chance to meet Dr. Sono, who spoke at Acumen Fund's 2007 Investor Gathering and Celebration last November. Dr. Sono was joined at the meeting by Saqib Khan, the COO of Micro Drip, and Javaid Chaudhry, MicroDrip's Technical Sales Manager.

MicroDrip is a for-profit company that sells and distributes drip irrigation systems to farmers in the Thar region. Acumen Fund has supported the formation of MicroDrip as a for-profit company and is making a US $500,000 loan to support their growth.

Acumen Fund has been working with drip irrigation since 2003, when we first funded International Development Enterprises India (IDEI), an NGO that had the ingenuity to engineer drip systems that were inexpensive enough to make economic sense for farmers making as little as $1 a day. MicroDrip now buys these systems from Global Easy Water Products (GEWP) in India, a recent Acumen Fund investment in scaling the domestic and international distribution of affordable irrigation technologies available to smallholder farmers. This is a powerful partnership across the India/Pakistan border.

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