As consciousness and awareness on use of green energy has been rising, we also do come across a lot of initiatives on the ground, either at individual level or community level. To share the ground level initiatives, we decided to present this issue focussing on “Renewable Energy”.
The link between water-energy-agriculture is very strong. The problems with erratic electricity supply and subsidised or free power is very well known. While on one hand, crops do not get timely irrigation owing to erratic power supply, there is a concern of indiscriminate use of water owing to free power supply. Ofcourse, there are a plethora of environmental concerns, associated with conventional energy use.
Of all the renewable sources of energy in agriculture, solar energy use seem to be on the rising. Simple innovations and initiatives on the ground include solar pumps, solar drying unit etc., which make the routine farming tasks much easier. Also are included some initiatives on using biomass energy, on a limited scale. Biogas cookstoves though do not impact farming directly, they make lives more livable, especially for women. Other initiatives include solar photovoltaics, solar heaters, solar powered hydroponics systems etc. Solar photovoltaics in crop production is yet another concept, catching up extensively as the land for crop production need not be compromised.
Along with ground experiences, for wider awareness, we have also included a couple of articles which were interesting, but published elsewhere. Hope you will enjoy reading this issue and support our initiative on sharing knowledge on agroecology through this magazine. We have also introduced simpler payment methods for you to donate online. Please continue your exemplary support in future too.
4. Editorial
6. Renewable energy for self sufficiency
Levine Lawrence
10. Solar milk cooling in Bangladesh – Off grid clean energy solutions for rural milk collection centres
REEEP
13. Scale up micro solar pumps to make farms ‘diesel free’ by 2024
Shaikh Wase Khalid
16. In the news
19. Making urban dairies more sustainable
Pranav Kumar and Maninder Singh
21. Economic empowerment of rural women – Through small enterprises
Madhuri Revanwar
25. New Books
26. Sources
27. Empowering Rural India – The RE way
32. Solar energy models for sustainable farming
Arukumar Shivaray
