On July 30, RAFI staff gathered with farmers from eastern Puerto Rico for a field day on solar-powered water pumps. The workshop, located at Finca Don Cotto farm in Aguas Buenas, PR, drew about twenty farmers and included a practical lesson on solar pump installation.
Many farmers in Puerto Rico have access to water sources in streams and low-lying areas, but need a means to transport that water to crops and reservoirs further uphill. Solar pumps offer an effective and sustainable solution. “This is a technology that is user-friendly and very easy to assemble, and very efficient for what is needed,” says Fello Pérez, RAFI’s Puerto Rico Farmer Resources Coordinator.
Pérez, together with RAFI’s Technical Assistance Provider Milexa Polanco and electrician Antonio Rullan, who specializes in solar power, guided the farmer attendees through the process of designing, installing, and using a solar water pump system. The group then worked together to mount an actual solar pump at Finca Don Cotto, the agroecology farm run by Samuel Morales Cotto, a 2024 recipient of RAFI’s Caribbean farmer grant. “Farmers always tell us that they learn by seeing and getting their hands dirty,” says Polanco, so the workshop offered the ideal opportunity to build practical knowledge in real time.
Once installed, solar pumps help boost farmer self-sufficiency and reduce input costs compared to traditional water pumps by cutting reliance on diesel or purchased electricity to run the engine. However, the up-front cost of a solar pump can be formidable, especially in Puerto Rico, where the purchase price of a pump can be up to three times its actual value due to rising tariffs and shipping costs to the island. RAFI staff are working to help bring down this cost barrier for farmers by organizing collective bulk buys of the pump systems, which are more economical.
Attendees left the event excited to apply the new technology to their own farms. Pérez and Polanco look forward to hosting more field days so farmers in different regions of Puerto Rico can gain practical experience with solar-powered farm solutions.