| Pakistan is predominantly an agrarian country where approximately 42 percent of the labor force is engaged with agriculture.It also provides significant amount of raw material to industries and helps in alleviation of poverty.Any country‘s economic development and prosperity depends on adequate availability of energy to all sectors including agriculture,household,information technology,infrastructure,transportation and industry.Recently,Pakistan has been suffering from severe energy shortages,which has resulted in frequent load-shedding and increased electricity tariffs,thus affecting farmers‘ negatively using pump-lift-irrigation.This shortage of electricity lead to the difficulty in managing the farm inputs due to lack of sufficient water for irrigation and therefore affected crop production and food security status of the country.However,the frequent load-shedding and increased electricity prices convince farmers to look for alternative source of energy for water pumping.Similarly,the problem of load-shedding has severely affected the lives of general public and they are in search of a better alternative to grid electricity.Solar home systems are frequently depicted as a reliable energy source under such situation which can satisfy the basic energy need such as light,because lighting is generally considered to be in the top three energy uses in developing countries.Two different studies are conducted on agricultural and rural development on the northern area of Pakistan.The purpose of the first study is to explore the factors that influence the acceptance of solar water pump technology.For this purpose,a solar water pump technology acceptance model(SWPTAM)was proposed based on technology acceptance model(TAM)and unified theory of acceptance and use of technology(UTAUT).Six variables were used to assess the model which includes;perceived usefulness(PU),perceived ease of use(PEOU),facilitating conditions(FC),cost tolerance(CT),awareness(AW)and attitude towards solar water pump usage.Data were collected from 450 rural farmers employing structured questionnaire through face to face interviews.The questions were orally translated to farmers due to lack of education.The method of structural equation modeling(SEM)was used to test and confirm the hypothesized model.Results indicated that out of eight hypotheses,seven were supported while one was not supported.Moreover,the results show that better predictors of solar water pump technology usage were gender,age,education awareness,cost tolerance,facilitating conditions,ease of use and usefulness.The study is valuable as it applied TAM to study the factors influencing the acceptance of solar water pump technology for the first time in the context of Pakistan.The second study is about the acceptance of solar home system(SHS).The importance of solar energy has been accepted worldwide for the generation of electricity,but unfortunately,Pakistan has yet to exert efforts on the development of this source of energy.Moreover,the expectations of the public towards SHS development in Pakistan and the difficulties they face in SHS usage are identified.The result of the survey indicates that about 81% of the respondents show higher interest in SHS.However,many respondents claim that some hindrances obstruct them from using SHS which includes;high cost of solar panels,lack of information and trust on solar panel providers.Almost 60% of the respondents expect that government provision of incentives could be the best way to boost the usage of SHS countrywide.For the successful implementation of new SHS policy,the government of Pakistan needs to establish solar power plants,increase installation of solar panels,provides funding and full information for conducting independent research.In addition,almost 90% of the respondents believe that government should take the lead in developing the SHS sector.Therefore,this study provides some valuable references for SHS promotion in Pakistan. |
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