Keeling Curve

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Project Summary / Description:

At Khethworks, our mission is to enable year-round irrigation, cultivation, and income generation for smallholder farmers. We develop portable and efficient solar pumps specifically for and with marginal farmers in India, to provide them an alternative option to depending on increasingly inconsistent monsoon rains or costly and polluting diesel and kerosene pumps. 


The cornerstone of the system is our patented hyper-efficient (>60% peak wire-to-water efficiency), portable, open-well submersible pump. It is a solar pump that is small enough to carry with a flow rate big enough to satisfy marginal farmer‚ needs at a price point never before possible.

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Smallholder farmers across India are primarily subsistence farmers and are thus by definition a climate vulnerable community, lacking the resources to adapt to the increasing effects of climate change. The majority of Indian smallholder farmers cannot afford to irrigate year round using fuel pumps; farmers can end up spending up to 90% of their profits renting fuel pumps and paying the recurring and increasing cost of the fuel. Without sufficient and reliable income, smallholders are forced to abandon farming outside of monsoon and migrate for labor in factories, mines or cities. These jobs often have poor or dangerous working conditions, which they are forced to endure to send money home to their villages. Thus our work at Khethworks enables them to unlock year-round productivity, cultivation, and income generation and to stay home with their families and communities. 
We work in east and northeast India, across India‚ tribal belt . Unfortunately in India, the caste system is alive and well, and the tribal caste (8% of total population) is perceived as right near the bottom. Over 51% of the tribal population is below the poverty line (households living off less than $2 a day). In addition to the challenges shared by all smallholder farmers in India, tribal farmers in particular struggle to obtain access to credit. We collaborate with NGO partners and financial institutions to develop fitting customer financing products. This financing has allowed tribal farmers to purchase the Khethworks solar pump and pay it off over 1-2 years. Additionally, the payment schedule reflects the agricultural calendar, meaning the farmers pay monthly nominal amounts and then larger installments after selling off their harvests. End user financing is not only more sustainable and scalable (particularly for income generating devices like solar pumps) than using aid money to give away pumps for free, but it is also empowering - the farmer knows her improved livelihood and life was earned, not given. 
While 80% of laborious farm work in India is done by women, they are rarely the decision makers. Institutions like self help groups (SHGs) are important factors in changing this balance and empowering these women. We work with women‚ SHGs across the region. In our collaborations, SHGs have play many important roles: providing informal financing for their members to purchase a Khethworks solar pump, distribution partners where they earn a margin off selling the pumps, and as rental programs, where they rent Khethworks pumps out by the hour or the day and then reinvest the profits into their SHGs. 
We are working with government skilling institutions to design training courses for the local rural youth to learn about solar and how to repair solar pumps. We then recruit from these institutions for our field and repairs team, providing skilled jobs for these youths right in their home districts. Providing dignified and desirable jobs for the rural youth is important in mitigating the increasing urban migration, and we at Khethworks feel it is an honor to be able to do so.

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