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Due to a lack of electricity in villages, Nepalese farmers use diesel pumps for irrigation.
By Mukesh Pokhrel
February 9, 2024. 12:23pm
Sanjaya Gupta, 48, a farmer, lives in the Rupandhei district, about 300 kilometres from Nepal’s capital, Kathmandu. He owns 0.8 hectares of land, which he uses for farming.
Gupta’s primary source of income is agriculture, and his farm produces rice and wheat. His family relies on the income from the sales of his farm produce to survive.
The lack of electricity in his village makes Gupta’s farming very difficult, as he spent ‘one-third of his income on “irrigation purposes.”
Gupta told The Colonist Report that he usually spends “$985 to buy diesel for irrigation” and that it takes 800 litres of diesel to irrigate one season of paddy.
Research has shown that diesel-powered pumping systems are more harmful to the environment and human health than solar system pumps, and diesel exhaust emits 70% of black carbon particulates from the diesel engine, contributing to rising greenhouse gas emissions from agriculture that undermine climate change mitigation efforts. Black carbon from all sources has been identified as a powerful climate change driver, second only to carbon dioxide.
On January 3, 2024, the government and India signed an agreement to export 10,000 MW of energy within ten years. The government is steadfast in its determination to export electricity to India, even though village-level farmers in Nepal rely on fossil fuels to power diesel pumps for irrigation due to the absence of a transmission line.
Nepal declared that it will increase the use of clean energy and be one of the nations to attain net-zero emissions between 2030 and 2045..
Up until three years ago, there was insufficient electricity distribution, and people in Nepal struggled to use it for domestic purposes. Although electricity is available for use in some places, it is not always available 24 hours a day.
According to the Nepal Electricity Authority, the country’s current generation capacity is around 2,800 MW, and the government intends to increase it to 30,000 MW of power by 2035.
Statistics indicate that in July 2023, Nepal’s electricity production reached 10,536 GWh, up from 9,521 GWh the previous year. Nepal, the South Asian Himalayan country, is rich in hydropower.
The Ministry of Energy, Water Resources, and Irrigation claims Nepal has the potential for 42,000 MW of energy production from hydropower; however, at present, the production is 2800 MW during the monsoon session.
While power is available to residents of the Rupandhei district at home, as in other districts, it is only used for domestic needs and lighting.
Due to a lack of electricity, farmers in communities like Parsa and Rupandeh irrigate their fields using diesel pumps that release black carbon into the atmosphere.
The Colonist Report observes that most farms are located two to three kilometres from residential areas, making it challenging for locals to connect electricity for irrigation from their homes to the farms.
Nepal has begun exporting 300 MW of electricity per day to India during the monsoon, a spokeswoman for the country’s electricity authority told local media.
However, while the Nepalese government is exporting electricity to the Indian market, farmers in this South Asian nation are having difficulty obtaining electricity for irrigation.
According to the Nepal Electricity Authority (NEA), currently, Nepal’s energy demand is 1800 MW and is fulfilled by importing from its southern neighbouring country, India, during the winter session.
The International Water Management Institute (IWMI) found that 22 of Nepal’s 77 Terai (flat land) districts had more than 120,396 diesel pumps in use in 2023. With 14 million litres of diesel used annually by the diesel pumps, 35.2 metric tonnes of black carbon, 49.24 metric tonnes of particulate matter, and 34,549 metric tonnes of CO2 are released into the atmosphere.
The Colonist Report visited farmers in the Parsa and Rupandehi villages, and many of them complained about the exorbitant cost of diesel. However, there is concern that the government should focus on assisting farmers in obtaining electricity to irrigate their fields rather than exporting electricity to the Indian market.
Deepak Gyawali, an energy expert and former Water Resource Minister of Nepal, told The Colonist Report that Nepal’s priority should be to consume energy within the country. “We have to increase our capacity to consume electricity within the country; our priority should not be to export energy to India,” says Gyawali. “When energy is surplus, it can be sold.”
Rice and wheat are among the daily meals eaten by Nepalese; however, without electricity, farmers are unable to irrigate their paddy, and irrigation can take up to three times in three months for paddy and at least twice in 120 days for wheat.
Irrigation is the artificial process of watering plants and vegetables through pipes and canals, which requires electricity to pump water to the irrigation system.
Rice needs continuous irrigation to grow in all seasons, and farmers use irrigation to expand their agricultural acreage and productivity.
Nepal’s agriculture sector accounts for 23.95 percent of GDP. Covering 17% of the nation’s total land area, the flat region known as Terai is a significant agricultural production region.
Experts believe that if farmers have access to irrigation facilities, production will double. Yuba Raj Khatiwada, former finance minister and economist, told The Colonist Report that the country’s food production will increase. “During my tenure, I focused on irrigation in the flat land of the country,” he said. “We must concentrate on irrigation to boost our agricultural production. We have two-way canal irrigation and ground irrigation, which provide the energy needed for infrastructure for groundwater irrigation. After that, the diesel pump will be removed automatically.”
The Alternative Energy Promotion Centre, a government organisation, has begun to distribute solar panels to farmers for irrigation purposes. The Centre issued a notice for farmers who are interested in getting solar, and many farmers applied.
The Colonist Report understands that the distributed solar is insufficient. Some farmers were lucky to get solar pumps. According to the Alternative Energy Promotion Centre, only 20% of farmers who requested solar pumps received them.
The Rural Municipality and the Alternative Renewable Energy Promotion Centre split the cost of a solar pump’s installation by 40% and 60%, respectively.
A study by IWMI shows that paddy production has increased by 1% since farmers started using solar pumps.
Amin Miya, from Chhipaharmaimun Rural Municipality in the Parsa district, used to plant paddy once a year. It took the government six months to send him a solar pump since he applied.
When Miya got a solar pump from the government, he produced paddy twice a year. “After using the solar pump’s irrigation, paddy production doubled,” he said. “Before using solar pumps’ irrigation, I depended on monsoons for two years. I have been using solar irrigation.”
Another farmer, Bharat Saha, was also lucky to get a solar pump from the government, which also took six months to arrive. He told The Colonist Report that solar did not reach every farmer across the county but electricity is the only solution accessible to all farmers in the country.
“The government’s priority should be to provide energy to Nepali farmers at the cheapest price,” he said. “Not to sell in India. It is normal to sell when there is more. It has not reached us. The selling point is incompatible.”
Paltan Saha of the Parsa district in Kalikamai Rural Municipality has been requesting a solar pump from the government since 2023, but he has not gotten one. “It is almost a year,” he told The Colonist Report.
Editing by Elfredah Kevin-Alerechi
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