Redesign and construction of a motorcycle powered water pump for irrigation :

Abstract

This design project aimed to re-design and construct a Motorcycle powered water pump for irrigation that was to be used in Namukombe village located in Busia district. Namukombe village in Busitema Sub-County, Syanyonja parish, Busia district, in the eastern part of Uganda has a fresh water body called River Namukombe. The residents are mainly farmers and over 98% of the crops harvested are rain-fed with only 2% of the crops harvested being irrigated, mostly along the banks of River Namukombe Currently people in this area are adopting rain fed agriculture. The existing irrigation systems such as the sprinkler, drip and other portable irrigation systems would solve this problem but they are not affordable and they require technical expertise to set up (Funa Moyo, 2014). This has hindered their adoption by local farmers and has led to continued dependency on rain-fed agriculture, poor yield and poor crop diversity grown The project’s objectives include designing the components of the system prototype, fabricating and assembling the proposed system, testing the performance of the proposed system, performing an economic analysis of the system. The research was justified by the need of irrigation since continued dependency on rain-fed agriculture limits the practice of all year-round agriculture, with a limited variety of crops grown, low yield and low income for farmers, yet the demand for food keeps increasing annually coupled with the increase in the general population. They may slow the global Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) of no poverty (1st SDG), zero hunger (2nd SDG), good health and wellbeing (3rd SDG) by 2040.