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The food crisis, along with rising food prices and Mali's dependency on food imports has lead to a demand in increasing the national food production in order to guarantee food security. Accordingly, irrigated food cultivation is expanding. To date, the necessary water is usually pumped with fossil fuels which are becoming more and more expensive. Solar water pumping, combined with drip irrigation, could help to reduce production costs and raise revenues.
Within a pilot project, 50 solar water pumps for farmers' market gardening shall be installed in collaboration with local partners and shall prove if the deployment of a self-sustaining market for solar pumps is possible. Thus, a micro-finance system shall make the high up-front costs affordable.
REPIC co-finances the first phase with 10 solar pumps which shall be used for demonstration and promotion purposes with farmer associations and producer organizations. | 
