Odisha farmer develops irrigation system from bamboo sticks, plastic bottles

Fed up with the poor irrigation conditions in and around his farmland, a “poor” farmer in Odisha has come up with a water lifting system made only with bamboo and plastic bottles. Mahur Tipiria, a resident of Badamtalia village, Mayurbhanj district, devised this system in an effort to efficiently irrigate his farmland from the nearest water source-a river two kilometres away. Speaking to ANI later, he revealed that despite multiple petitions, the government did not help, therefore he devised his “own irrigation system”.

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How does it work?

The rather eco-friendly system does not use electricity but just gravity to pull water out of the river. The bamboo is placed on a sloping structure as its wheels rotate with the water current, lifting water from the source. The water is then collected in used plastic water bottles. The water is then channelized through bamboo pipes towards farmlands. The system not only helps Tipiria but also other farmers nearby. 

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Speaking about the idea behind his innovation, the peasant revealed he had filed multiple petitions to the governments but nobody came to the rescue. "I am a poor man and have no money. I had filed a petition after petition to government offices but no one came to help us. So I decided to develop this technique by myself with my own intelligence," he said.

A few months ago, a superintendent of police in Uttar Pradesh's Jhansi district took to Twitter to share a farmers ‘jugaad’ to keep the crop-damaging insects away. ‘Locust is the mother of invention’, Rahul Srivastav wrote in the caption. In the video, one can see an ‘aeroplane’ mounted on a long pole in the middle of a field. The ‘aeroplane’ itself is a creative hack as it is made out of moving fan blades, a plastic bottle, a soda can and a cardboard tail. In the short 15-second clip, the ‘aeroplane’ can be seen rotating atop the pole and making a loud noise that would help keep the locusts away. 

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