Across a village in southern Bihar, cropping calendars collapse into a handful of critical days. Missing the planting window by even a couple of days can reduce yields enough to affect a household’s livelihood. Everyone needs the same machine at…

Installing a solar-powered pump is only the beginning. What comes next—figuring out how people share it—is a more complex challenge. During my summer internship with the Tata-Cornell Institute for Agriculture and Nutrition (TCI), I spent my first week visiting solar…