Those behind an initiative which is committed to implementing affordable technology tailored specifically to the needs of subsistence farmers in water-scarce countries claim it has introduced a new and innovative pump technology that could help millions of subsistence farmers in Africa.
Dirk Long, one of the founders of Current Pumps, saw the need to develop a way of giving the farmers in Niger reliable accessibility to water, the lifeblood of their farmland. Him and his team has created a pump that can eliminate the need to haul water from rivers and reservoirs to farmland without electricity.
Drawing on the example of H A Wirtz who refined Archimedes’ spiral pump to bring water to his metal shop in the 18th century, Current Pumps has refined this technology to bring water to the farms of Niger, and, it hopes, eventually to numerous African subsistence farmers.
The waterwheel pump style utilises the flow of the river to activate the pump action. By merely anchoring the pump in the river near a farm, the farmer can drip irrigate as much as 4,000sq metres of farmland. The initiative can serve farmers in more ways than one – when paired with filtration devices, the pump can provide a family with clean drinking water. Current Pumps can also be used to maintain crops of aquatic plants & fish.
In the first phase, Current Pumps plans on installing 20 pumps in Niger. In order to achieve this goal, its launched an 'Indiegogo' campaign called “Updating Archimedes”. By fundraising and crowdsourcing, anyone can be a part of Current Pumps’ goals to revolutionise water delivery and irrigation in the Developing World. Once this project is funded, there are plans to move into the second and third phases of the plan, and the team intend to wholly locally source and manufacture Current Pumps in-country to help create a small and viable supply chain.
Those interested in taking part should visit “Updating Archimedes” on Indiegogo.com ,or log on to www.currentpumps.com .
