Context and socio-economic impact of solar greenhouse
Participatory approach for promoter selection
Training to mason on construction
Training to resource persons on agro running
Dolkar is now enabled to sell her own vegetables in Leh
A success story from Ladakh in India
The Western Indian Himalaya region has an average elevation of 3500m above the sea level and it is characterized by harsh climatic conditions such as low precipitation, temperature dipping to -25° Celsius and limited agricultural growing season.
For six months of the year the roads are impassable and the region is cut off. Vegetables must be supplied by aeroplane. As a result of these extra transportation costs, prices increases by three fold. However, passive solar greenhouses in cold arid region has made possible to produce fresh vegetables to ensure the food security for the people during extreme winter condition in this region.
Despite it has a wide socio-economic impact and social mobilisation on the local population.
During the implementation
During the installation phase the major activities was on social mobilisation and training.
- During the Installation phase 163 out of 400 villages were covered in the project.
- Community based training were given to 15 resource persons on solar greenhouse construction and agro-running. In addition employment opportunities were generated for 221 mason and 15 carpenters on solar greenhouse construction.
After the implementation
After the installation significant impact was on socio-economical, gender empowerment & health.
- Income generation in peri-urban is supplemented by 15-20 % where as in the remote areas income is supplemented by 30%. Additionally, for the commercial promoter’s income is boosted by 80-100%.
- Gender empowerment; Women are mainly involved in running the passive greenhouse (from farming to selling the vegetables in the market) and this has led to their empowerment as they decide how to utilize the money earned (often for their children’s education). Despites, for the first time women in Kargil and Padum are enabled to sell vegetables in their local market.
- 4,000 people benefit directly by consuming and selling fresh vegetables from their own IGH. In addition, 53,000 people benefit indirectly from IGH by buying fresh vegetables and bartering with the IGH owners. The overall beneficiaries comprise 25% of total population and are now able to consume fresh leafy vegetables and which has made significant improvement in their health and quality of life.
- Due to the simplicity of the technology self replication has been already done by more than 50 families. Eventually, 650 families are now enabled to run passive solar greenhouses.
