Solar Solutions for Farmers in The Gambia

Visiting farms in The Gambia, students with Engineers Without Borders at Penn (EWB at Penn) saw firsthand the local challenges of irrigating crops, such as rice, eggplant, peppers, tomatoes, bananas, and cassava.

Sulay Camara, co-founder of FAIR Farms Gambia, observes Chloe Furst (CBE’28) drawing a map. (Courtesy Engineers Without Borders at Penn)

In conventional irrigation systems, diesel fuel or grid electricity powers pumps that carry water from a borehole either into drip irrigation lines on the ground or directly into a holding tank. But diesel is detrimental to worker health, and the Gambian power grid is unreliable. Additionally, if the line pressure is low, workers must manually transport water to the farthest reaches of a farm.

Some farms have solar-powered irrigation systems but may not have a battery for energy storage—an issue because farmers water their crops in the early morning and late afternoon, when evaporation rates are lower, but solar panels produce the most energy mid-day.

This semester, students from EWB at Penn—a nonprofit humanitarian organization focused on sustainable development worldwide—are designing a solar-powered irrigation system with a battery for FAIR Farms Gambia, a demonstration and research farm co-founded by School of Veterinary Medicine and Graduate School of Education alumna Brianna Parsons, who is now the One Health Program Manager at Penn Vet.

In January, undergraduate students Laila Farhan, Chloe Furst, Jack Leitzell, and Iris Wong traveled to The Gambia with School of Engineering and Applied Science professor Lorena Grundy, faculty mentor for EWB at Penn, to understand farmers’ current practices and future hopes.

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