Treadle pump

The pumping is activated by stepping up and down on a treadle, which are levers, which drive pistons, creating cylinder suction that draws groundwater to the surface.

Many treadle pumps are manufactured locally, but they can be challenging to produce consistently without highly skilled welders and production hardware.

RDRS then a program of Lutheran World Federation\World Service in northern Bangladesh had begun the search for efficient, low-cost irrigation technology using local materials from 1975, experimenting with many varieties and the model developed by Norwegian intermediate technologist Gunnar Barnes was developed in 1979.

Later claims that the treadle pump was invented in 1980 by Mr. Narendra Nath Deb in Bangladesh (), with input from Dan Jenkins, USAID engineer were somewhat inaccurate although both contributed to its further development and replication Working with the poor, RDRS endeavored to produce an affordable manual pump for irrigation.

[2] The main criteria were that it should be able to irrigate at least 0.5 ha of wheat, the total cost of purchase and installation was not to be more than the price of one bag of paddy, and the pump was to be simple enough to make and repair locally.

The last design before the treadle pump was a “Y-pump”, having two cylinders welded together in a Y shape, and a hand-driven rocking frame so the hands could help the foot.

One of the first instances of the treadle pump moving out of Bangladesh was its promotion by the International Rice Research Institute (IRRI) in the Philippines in 1984, under Robert Stickney.

A main player in its development was Carl Bielenberg, whose work (based on a 1985 design by Dan Jenkins) was supported by Appropriate Technology International, and CARE.