Sulis Setiawati plucks some fresh vegetables from a field and smiles: “Thanks to the solar irrigation, farmers can now grow a range of fresh vegetables when in the past they had to survive from growing corn and maize.” She tells how farmers can now farm during the eight-month long dry season, giving a boost to the economy and paving the way out of poverty. As local partner in the Hivos Sumba Iconic Island Initiative, Setiawati has been at the heart of this ground-breaking, island-wide initiative to address the energy shortage and improve living conditions by going one hundred percent renewable by 2020.
