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Creating wealth from groundwater for dollar-a-day farmers: Where the silent revolution and the four revolutions to end rural poverty meet
Journal Hydrogeology Journal
Publisher Springer Berlin / Heidelberg
ISSN 1431-2174 (Print) 1435-0157 (Online)
Issue Volume 14, Number 3 / March, 2006
DOI 10.1007/s10040-005-0011-2
Pages 424-432
Subject Collection Earth and Environmental Science
SpringerLink Date Tuesday, February 21, 2006
Paul Polak (Corresponding author) / Email: ppolak@ideorg.org / Phone: +1-303-232-4336
Robert Yoder / Email: ryoder@ideorg.org
International Development Enterprises (IDE), 10403 W. Colfax, Suite 500, Lakewood, 80215, CO, USA
Received: 7 October 2005 Accepted: 24 October 2005 Published online: 21 February 2006
Abstract: More than 550 million of the current 1.1 billion people earning less than $1-a-day earn a living from agriculture in developing countries.
The four revolutions --
A revolution in water control is needed to develop and mass-disseminate new, affordable, small-plot irrigation technologies.
A revolution in agriculture is required to enable smallholders to produce high-value, marketable, labor-intensive cash crops.
A revolution in markets is needed to open access to markets for the crops they produce and the inputs they need to produce them.
A revolution in design, based on the ruthless pursuit of affordability, is needed to harness shallow groundwater.
The experiences of suppliers of treadle pumps, low-cost drip irrigation and water storage systems were examined. The wealth these technologies generated, coupled with falling prices for small diesel pumps in countries like India and China, created a suitable environment for the rapid adoption of affordable diesel pump tubewells, which in turn created vigorous water markets and expanded access to affordable irrigation water for smallholders. The combination of smallholder-centered revolutions, along with the âsilent revolution in groundwaterâ described by Llamas and Martinez-Santos (Water Sci Technol 51(8):167â174, 2005) provide new practical options for meeting the UN Millennium Development Goals on poverty and hunger by 2015.