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Treadle Pump
A treadle pump is a human-powered suction pump that sits on top of a well and is used for irrigation. It is designed to lift water from a depth of seven metres or less. The pumping is activated by stepping up and down on a treadle, which are levers, which drive pistons, creating cylinder suction that draws groundwater to the surface. Application Treadle pumps free farmers from dependence on rain-fed irrigation and helps farmers maximize return on their small plots of land. The treadle pump can do most of the work of a motorized pump, but costs considerably less. Pump prices including installation range between US$20 and $100. Because it needs no fossil fuel (it is driven by the operator's body weight and leg muscles), it can also cost less (50%) to operate than a motorized pump. It can lift five to seven cubic metres of water per hour from wells and boreholes up to seven metres deep and can also be used to draw water from lakes and rivers. Many treadle pumps are manufactured local ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Suction
Suction is the colloquial term to describe the air pressure differential between areas. Removing air from a space results in a pressure differential. Suction pressure is therefore limited by external air pressure. Even a perfect vacuum cannot suck with more pressure than is available in the surrounding environment. Suctions can form on the sea, for example, when a ship founders. When the pressure in one part of a physical system is reduced relative to another, the fluid in the higher pressure region will exert a force relative to the region of lowered pressure, referred to as pressure-gradient force. Pressure reduction may be static, as in a piston and cylinder arrangement, or dynamic, as in the case of a vacuum cleaner when air flow results in a reduced pressure region. When animals breathe, the diaphragm and muscles around the rib cage cause a change of volume in the lungs. The increased volume of the chest cavity decreases the pressure inside, creating an imbalance with ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Bangladesh
Bangladesh (}, ), officially the People's Republic of Bangladesh, is a country in South Asia. It is the eighth-most populous country in the world, with a population exceeding 165 million people in an area of . Bangladesh is among the most densely populated countries in the world, and shares land borders with India to the west, north, and east, and Myanmar to the southeast; to the south it has a coastline along the Bay of Bengal. It is narrowly separated from Bhutan and Nepal by the Siliguri Corridor; and from China by the Indian state of Sikkim in the north. Dhaka, the capital and largest city, is the nation's political, financial and cultural centre. Chittagong, the second-largest city, is the busiest port on the Bay of Bengal. The official language is Bengali, one of the easternmost branches of the Indo-European language family. Bangladesh forms the sovereign part of the historic and ethnolinguistic region of Bengal, which was divided during the Partition of ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Tropical Agriculture
Worldwide more human beings gain their livelihood from agriculture than any other endeavor; the majority are self-employed subsistence farmers living in the tropics. While growing food for local consumption is the core of tropical agriculture, cash crops (normally crops grown for export) are also included in the definition. When people discuss the tropics, it is normal to use generalized labels to group together similar tropical areas. Common terms would include the humid-tropics ( rainforests); the arid-tropics (deserts and dry areas); or monsoon zones (those areas that have well defined wet/dry seasons and experience monsoons). Such labeling is very useful when discussing agriculture, because what works in one area of the world will normally work in a similar area somewhere else, even if that area is on the opposite side of the globe. Most temperate zone agricultural techniques are inappropriate for tropical areas. The second half of the 20th century saw many attempts to dup ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Appropriate Technology
Appropriate technology is a movement (and its manifestations) encompassing technological choice and application that is small-scale, affordable by locals, decentralized, labor-intensive, energy-efficient, environmentally sustainable, and locally autonomous. It was originally articulated as intermediate technology by the economist Ernst Friedrich "Fritz" Schumacher in his work ''Small Is Beautiful.'' Both Schumacher and many modern-day proponents of appropriate technology also emphasize the technology as people-centered. Appropriate technology has been used to address issues in a wide range of fields. Well-known examples of appropriate technology applications include: bike- and hand-powered water pumps (and other self-powered equipment), the universal nut sheller, self-contained solar lamps and streetlights, and passive solar building designs. Today appropriate technology is often developed using open source principles, which have led to ''open-source appropriate technolog ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Non-governmental Organization
A non-governmental organization (NGO) or non-governmental organisation (see American and British English spelling differences#-ise, -ize (-isation, -ization), spelling differences) is an organization that generally is formed independent from government. They are typically nonprofit organization, nonprofit entities, and many of them are active in humanitarianism or the social sciences; they can also include club (organization), clubs and voluntary association, associations that provide services to their members and others. Surveys indicate that NGOs have a high degree of public trust, which can make them a useful proxy for the concerns of society and stakeholders. However, NGOs can also be lobby groups for corporations, such as the World Economic Forum. NGOs are distinguished from International organization, international and intergovernmental organizations (''IOs'') in that the latter are more directly involved with sovereign states and their governments. The term as it is used ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Food And Agriculture Organization
The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO)french: link=no, Organisation des Nations unies pour l'alimentation et l'agriculture; it, Organizzazione delle Nazioni Unite per l'Alimentazione e l'Agricoltura is an international organization that leads international efforts to defeat hunger and improve nutrition and food security. Its Latin motto, ', translates to "let there be bread". It was founded on 16 October 1945. The FAO is composed of 195 members (including 194 countries and the European Union). Their headquarters is in Rome, Italy, and the FAO maintains regional and field offices around the world, operating in over 130 countries. It helps governments and development agencies coordinate their activities to improve and develop agriculture, forestry, fisheries, and land and water resources. It also conducts research, provides technical assistance to projects, operates educational and training programs, and collects data on agricultural output, pr ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Proximity Designs
Proximity Designs is a not-for-profit social enterprise working to help reduce poverty for rural families in Myanmar (Burma). They design and market products and services that low-income farmers purchase and use to help increase their incomes. The organisation sells foot-powered irrigation pumps, water storage tanks, drip irrigation systems, solar lighting and farm advisory services. Proximity distributes its products and services through a network of private sector agro-dealers and independent village-level agents that reaches approximately 80 percent of Myanmar's rural population. The products are designed to help farmers grow higher value crops and significantly increase their annual incomes. Since starting in 2004, more than 110,000 Proximity products have been purchased by farm households in Myanmar. Following the disaster of Cyclone Nargis in 2008, the organisation became active in designing and implementing humanitarian relief and recovery efforts for entire communitie ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
KickStart International
KickStart International is a nonprofit social enterprise headquartered in Nairobi, Kenya. KickStart designs and mass-markets climate-smart irrigation technology to smallholder farmers in sub-Saharan Africa, in order to enable a transition from subsistence agriculture to commercial irrigated agriculture. Donor funds are used to design the irrigation pumps, establish supply chains, demonstrate and promote the pumps, and educate farmers on the benefits and methods of small-scale irrigation. Background Food supply across sub-Saharan Africa is highly unstable due to its unpredictable climate and water reserves. Only 6% of Africa's cultivated land is irrigated, limiting the volume of crops that can be grown out of season, but increased access to irrigation systems stands to increase food productivity by up to 50%. History KickStart was founded in 1991 by Dr. Martin Fisher and Nick Moon. Fisher first went to Kenya on a Fulbright Fellowship to study the Appropriate Technology Movemen ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
International Development Enterprises
iDE, formerly International Development Enterprises, is an international nonprofit organization that promotes a business approach to increasing income and creating livelihood opportunities for poor rural households. iDE was founded in 1982 by Paul Polak, a Denver, Colorado psychiatrist who promoted the concept of helping poor people become entrepreneurs instead of simply giving them handouts. Originally, iDE was devoted to the manufacture, marketing, and distribution of affordable, scalable micro-irrigation and low-cost water recovery systems throughout the developing world. iDE facilitates local manufacture and distribution of these products through local supply chains that sell to farmers at an affordable price which they can repay in one growing season. This strategy allows farmers to grow higher value and surplus crops, and in turn links them to high-value crop markets where they can realize profits from their higher yields. Recently, their success is in the promotion of sanitat ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
International Rice Research Institute
The International Rice Research Institute (IRRI) is an international agricultural research and training organization with its headquarters in Los Baños, Laguna, in the Philippines, and offices in seventeen countries. IRRI is known for its work in developing rice varieties that contributed to the Green Revolution in the 1960s which preempted the famine in Asia. The institute, established in 1960 aims to reduce poverty and hunger, improve the health of rice farmers and consumers, and ensure environmental sustainability of rice farming. It advances its mission through collaborative research, partnerships, and the strengthening of the national agricultural research and extension systems of the countries IRRI works in. IRRI is one of 15 agricultural research centers in the world that form the CGIAR Consortium of International Agricultural Research Centers, a global partnership of organizations engaged in research on food security. It is also the largest non-profit agricultural re ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
USAID
The United States Agency for International Development (USAID) is an independent agency of the U.S. federal government that is primarily responsible for administering civilian foreign aid and development assistance. With a budget of over $27 billion, USAID is one of the largest official aid agencies in the world and accounts for more than half of all U.S. foreign assistance—the highest in the world in absolute dollar terms. Congress passed the Foreign Assistance Act on September 4, 1961, which reorganized U.S. foreign assistance programs and mandated the creation of an agency to administer economic aid. USAID was subsequently established by the executive order of President John F. Kennedy, who sought to unite several existing foreign assistance organizations and programs under one agency. USAID became the first U.S. foreign assistance organization whose primary focus was long-term socioeconomic development. USAID's programs are authorized by Congress in the Foreign Assistan ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Treadle Pump, Original
A treadle (from oe, tredan, "to tread") is a mechanism operated with a pedal for converting reciprocating motion into rotating motion. Along with cranks, treadmills, and treadwheels, treadles allow human and animal machine power in the absence of electricity. Before the widespread availability of electric power, treadles were widely used to power a range of machines. They may still be used as a matter of preference or in environments where electric power is not available. Operation and uses A treadle is operated by pressing down on its pedal with one or both feet, causing a rocking motion. This movement can then be stored as rotational motion via a crankshaft driving a flywheel. Alternatively, energy can be stored in a spring as in the pole lathe. Treadles were once used extensively to power most machines including lathes, rotating or reciprocating saws, spinning wheels, looms, and sewing machines. The last use was popularized by Elias Howe and Isaac Singer in the epo ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
