Life is 'better after solar': Harnessing sunlight gives India's salt farmers freedom and profit

Under a punishing midday sun, Devabhai Sawadiya slowly rakes the salt pan that has been in his family for generations. It's quiet around him, except for the sweeping motions of his salt broom and the soft, clinking sound of dishes being washed nearby. 

That's a new development. For years, there used to be loud, sputtering diesel machines running constantly to pump out the salty brine stuck underground, which the farmers then spread out into the square fields to evaporate and produce salt crystals.

Now, it's solar panels that dot the vast arid desert, powering the pumps.  

The switch to harnessing the power of the many hours of sunlight that shine on the Kutch district of India's western Gujarat state has dramatically changed Sawadiya's life. 

"We finally make a profit because of solar, after years of toiling," the 59-year-old farmer told CBC News.

"Before [we got] solar panels, there was barely enough money to eat and not a rupee more."

The nomadic salt farmers, called agariyas, migrate from their villages across the state of Gujarat to the Little Rann of Kutch desert each fall as soon as the monsoon rains recede and camp out in rickety tarpaulin tents near the salt marshes for the eight-month harvesting season. 

They don't own the marshland they have been working for generations to make the salt that India, the third-largest salt producer in the world, needs. 

It's government land that they return to every year to help produce around 30 per cent of India's salt found inland, which is mostly table salt. 

Until they received help to buy the solar panels and install them beside their salt pans, the farmers would start each season in debt, forced to borrow heavily from salt traders so they could buy the 15 or so barrels of diesel that their old pumps required. 

The borrowed costs could go up to 300,000 Indian rupees, or nearly $5,000 Cdn, a season. 

"We would return with bags full of salt, but were left with nothing — not enough money," Sawadiya said. 

The constant smoke and toxins from the diesel made them "sick and caused so many problems," he added. His hands were also frequently stained black from having to fiddle with the machines.  

Sawadiya's two solar panels now have a prime position next to the family's tent, where his young grandson, Kushti, is playing. There is still one diesel pump that is only used as a backup at night or when it's cloudy.