Extreme heat and drought are reducing agricultural yields from Italy to Arizona. Farmers need to develop ways to conserve water—and find more of it.
Waste— “gray”—water is one way to do it.
In rural Nepal, dozens of households have constructed plastic and cement ponds that hold both wastewater and rainwater. The ponds hold from 264 to 793 gallons of kitchen and tap wastewater and rainwater. The water is used to irrigate gardens. Using captured rainwater and gray water extends vegetable cultivation by 3 to 4 months during the dry season, increasing output, enhancing food security and improving nutrition.
Most of these gardens are kitchen gardens, in which families raise fresh produce for their own consumption. This improves household nutrition and helps prevent the consumption of inexpensive ultraprocessed foods, which are marketed even in Nepal’s remote villages. Surplus is sold in local markets, raising incomes. Some of these kitchen gardens are so productive they have been turned into commercial enterprises. Local savings and credit groups, in which members contribute small monthly amounts and take out low-interest loans to buy more land and productivity-enhancing implements, enable this expansion to commercial scale.
World Neighbors is the international development organization that uses private money to work with local partners to implement climate resilient innovations to increase agricultural output and incomes in Nepal and other low-income countries. Please contact me to learn more about this and other simple and inexpensive innovations with large impact.
