===Pumping on your feet — the The Treadle pumpPump===
Say you are a poor farmer in a rural area in a developing country. Then your best bet out of poverty is to make more money. From where? From the field. You need to grow stuff. And because growing things need water, you need access to water. Water is money.
The [[Treadle_pump|treadle pump]] fulfills all these demands with flying colors. It is a foot-powered water pump widely used in Asia and spreading in Africa. It consists of two metal cylinders with pistons that are operated by a natural walking motion on two treadles. It is ideally suited for use on small farms which draw irrigation water from 1-7 m deep. Because it is a suction pump, the depth is limited to about 8m.
[[Image:Treadle_pump.PNG|thumb|centerright|250px200px| A treadle pump, used for irrigation]]
===History===
The treadle pump is very, very affordable. In Bangladesh a treadle pump costs US$ 20, and on average farmers make an additional US$100 per year in extra income. Currently, over 2 million treadle pumps have been installed worldwide, produced in 300 local workshops and used by more than one million poor rural families that otherwise could not have afforded an irrigation pump. Not bad for a humble pump, don’t you think?
Additional links:===Links===
*[[Akvo water solution of the week|Other blogs in this series]]
*[[Treadle_pump|Akvopedia article on the Treadle pump]]
*[http://www.ide-india.org/PublicationPDFForLoginUsers.aspx?CategoryID=12 Gold Standard Treadle Pump POA]* [http://www.ide-india.org/treadlepumpSurfaceTreadlePump.shtml aspx KB Surface Treadle Pump programme, IDE]* [http://www.ide-india.org/idei/Backend/ModuleFiles/DCPH/file/Socio%20Economic%20and%20Techno%20EnvironmentaAssessment%20of%20TP-TERI.pdf Socio-Indiaeconomic-techno-environmental assessment of IDEI products: Treadle Pump]. March 2007.*[httphttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KH2I2ZKD_98&feature=related D1d32uVHZtc Treadle pumps in Uttar Pradesh, India, introduced by IDE-India]