Millions of smallholder farmers cannot irrigate during the dry season because water lies just beyond the reach of traditional suction pumps. Allied H2O, Inc. was created to address this challenge by developing affordable, innovative water-pump systems. Originally designed for farmers in developing countries, this technology provides access to deeper water sources and can more than double annual crop production.

After successful proof-of-concept testing, Allied has entered the final design phase. This summer, a complete system was built and shipped to Ethiopia for real-world field testing. Building on this success, Allied is also introducing a new product adapted for the equine and ranch markets, delivering the same reliable, efficient water-lifting performance for livestock, remote pastures, and off-grid applications.

As a Benefit Corporation, Allied operates as a for-profit company focused on solving real-world water challenges while creating both social and economic impact. The pump was developed in response to requests from relief organizations and has since proven adaptable to broader agricultural needs. Supporting efficient water access—whether for smallholder farmers or ranch and equine operations—is essential to improving productivity and sustainability worldwide.

The sections that follow outline the challenges, the potential impact, and how this new technology can be part of the solution. To learn more, contact us at info@alliedh2o.com.

Affordable access to groundwater deeper than 22 feet unlocks significant productivity gains for smallholder farmers, aligning strong social impact with compelling market potential. Irrigation drives higher yields, increased farm income, and year-round production, enabling a shift from subsistence crops to higher-value, market-oriented agriculture. These improvements translate into more stable cash flows for farming households and stronger, more reliable demand for irrigation solutions.

Irrigation also supports livestock production, adding diversified revenue streams and increasing asset value at the farm level. Smallholder agriculture has historically been a powerful engine for local economic growth, with strong linkages to input suppliers, processors, and markets. As global food demand and employment needs rise, scalable, cost-effective irrigation technologies represent a significant investment opportunity—one that combines financial returns with measurable economic and social impact.

Global Good, an organization focused on solving major global challenges, identified intermediate-depth irrigation as one of the most critical unmet needs for smallholder farmers. In its Smallholder Farm Solutions report, Global Good highlighted the lack of affordable irrigation options for farmers drawing water from depths beyond 22 feet.

Following extensive field research with farmers and aid organizations, Global Good released a Target Product Profile in 2016 outlining the requirements for a 7–20 meter lift pump. Key criteria included:

• Rugged construction with bill of materials under $300.

• Target retail price to farmer below $800.

• Output of approximately 3,170 gallons (12 m³) per day with low operating costs.

• Portable for use at multiple wells and secure storage.

• Simple, user-friendly operation for crop and livestock farmers.

• Integrated energy source; no dependence on grid electricity.

After extensive research, testing, and early prototypes, we made a strategic shift in approach that accelerated development of an irrigation system meeting Global Good’s Target Product Profile. Rather than modernizing historic water-lifting designs, we reimagined modern pumping systems in their simplest, most affordable form for smallholder use. This shift quickly led to a unique, cost-effective irrigation solution aligned with Global Good’s requirements.

A working prototype of the below-waterline assembly has been successfully operated using multiple power sources: a low-cost four-stroke gasoline engine, a solar-powered DC motor, and a hybrid configuration combining both. The hybrid system balances reliable water access with low operating costs. The system delivers 3,170 gallons (12 m³) of pressurized water in under 4.5 hours, enabling use across multiple sites in a single day. Belowground components are low cost and locally installable, while aboveground components can be shared among farmers, supporting flexible deployment, multiple irrigation methods, and scalable adoption.

While we can find no direct competitor to the current innovation, the comparison between Allied H2O’s irrigation system and foreign-made submersible solar-powered pumps appears similar in price and specifications, but Allied H2O maintains key competitive advantages that include:

Cultural

• Provides an approachable entry point for smallholder farmers to adopt an irrigation solution featuring component simplicity and more familiar installation techniques that can be cost efficiently upgraded to solar powered at any point in the future

Mechanical

• Provides a solar-installation option that keeps a more affordable DC motor aboveground and in close proximity to the photovoltaic (PV) panels reducing the cost of longer electric wires and the additional line loss of DC current

• Gives the farmer the potential to power the irrigation system by other means available to him (i.e. preexisting DC motor/petrol engine or AC motor powered by intermittent grid electricity)

Affordability

• Places the largest percentage of the cost above ground and mobile which creates an investment that can be more easily maximized by multi-location use, selling excess water, dividing cost among users, or protecting from theft

• Provides entry-level 3hp gas-engine model that meets the low-cost characteristic of the product profile and can be upgraded to solar as the farmer’s income increases

• Each strategic upgrade allows continued utilization of earlier investments to maximize irrigation reliability at the lowest capital and operational costs

Environmental

• Offers inexpensive belowground components that encourage leaving the customized pump cylinder installations inside the well, even when moving the aboveground power source to other locations, helping to protect the aquifer’s water quality

• Offers solar options for environmentally conscious operation

Maintenance

• Provides a solar-powered design that avoids the need for sensitive underwater electrical connections to submerged electric motors

• Designed using the philosophy of right-to-repair with all components individually repairable or replaceable by the smallholder or local technician

• Provides a quick-entry design for ease of repair or cleaning of the pump cylinder without needing special tools or training

Allied H2O, Inc. is based on the strength that comes with nearly four decades of conducting business in the same community.  Longstanding relationships, both business and personal, have created an extensive team of allies supplying expertise, resources, and mentoring in a wide range of experience and professions.

As a team, Steve and Beverly Stewart began dating in 1977, married in 1981, and have partnered in business to varying degrees continuously since 1983.  They have two grown children and four grandsons.  Theirs is the classic case of one’s strengths complementing the other’s.

Steve Stewart

co-founder
 

Steve is a creative thinker who fuses engineering and design and is dedicated to finding solutions to issues that face people in regions where there is water or food insecurity.  He applies his degree in Industrial Psychology to narrowing designs and manufacturing procedures to their simplest, most appropriate forms.  After 25 years of designing and manufacturing products for the American consumer, Steve turned to designing for developing nations.  In 2008, he formed Access Development, LLC and began a consultancy for Water4.  Working within specific parameters, he designed the Access 1.2 manual water pump and a manual borehole drilling approach.  Both designs share Steve’s innovative merging of ancient design with modern technology and are open source.  These efforts developed into operational overseas production facilities in Ghana and Ethiopia.  His contributions went beyond physical tools to recommending progressive implementation strategies to promote self-sustaining utilities for potable water.  In 2018, Access Development was sold to Water4 allowing Steve to refocus on design.  Consistent with his character, he chose to begin with the most challenging, one he was introduced to by Global Good two years earlier:  an intermediate-depth irrigation pump for smallholder farmers.

Beverly Stewart

co-founder
 

Beverly has a degree in Language Arts but has worked in accounting, and business management for nearly 40 years. Throughout this period she has been responsible for daily operations including: accounts payable and receivable, payroll, regulatory compliance, bookkeeping, banking, insurance and employee benefits, and communication. Her passion for studying cultural history and the evolving trends in international development has been instrumental in much of the Stewarts’ approach to business and design. At Access Development, LLC, she added an education in grant writing and an understanding of setting up business in Africa. She coordinated the set-up of businesses in five African countries, routinely made international banking transfers, and maintained accounts in foreign currencies. She employs her organizational skills and business experience to keep the business operating smoothly and Steve focused on design.

Pre-Seed Round

From July 1, 2018 through September 30, 2019, the Stewarts utilized and invested personal funds to establish Allied H2O with the following traction:

• Focused research on Global Good’s Target Product Profile - 7-20 Meter Lift Pump led to the invention of several designs for Allied H2O and laid the groundwork for the current irrigation pump system

• Built test platforms to gather data for optimal motion and operational costs for the initial key components

• Created technical drawings for communication with trade organizations, sub-contractors, and attorneys

• Disclosure Abstracts written and technical drawings finalized for two provisional patent filings (July 26, 2019 and November 20, 2019)

• Collaborated with subcontractors for system modifications and the subsequent production of key prototype test models

• Initiated the introduction and assisted in the passage of the Oklahoma Benefit Corporation Act which went into effect November 1, 2019

Smallholder Irrigation System

Allied H2O, Inc. has developed a new irrigation pump system within exacting guidelines simplifying efficient water-lifting methods to provide affordable access to intermediate-depth water reserves in order to expand key geographic areas under irrigation.

For smallholder farmers, increasing the number of annual crop cycles with irrigation could increase their agricultural production by two to three times, giving them an opportunity to move out of subsistence farming in countries that recognize this as a vital strategy for food security and poverty reduction.

Constraints

The conditions that prevent these smallholders from being able to generate a surplus of agricultural products are specific physical barriers that, when combined, present an insurmountable challenge.

• Size of plot averages only one-half acre which puts an immediate cap on how much agricultural production can be converted to cash from a single rain-fed crop.

• Depth to water below their land is too great for affordable surface (suction) pumps to function, requiring a higher cost pump that can operate from below the waterline.

• Quantity of water needed for a cultivated one-half acre can reach 3,000 gallons per day at the height of the growing cycle making a mechanized pump essential.

• Lack of grid electricity rules out an entire category of submersible pumps thus requiring an effective pump system to have its own autonomous energy source.

Technology

Our introduction to this needed design was initiated by Global Good, an organization that was committed to identifying and solving humanitarian challenges. Having conducted extensive research and interviews with smallholder farmers and aid organizations, Global Good compiled a list of features into the document, Target Product Profile, 7-20 meter lift pump (TPP) that precisely guided our efforts to create a product capable of filling this market void.

Thanks to this development roadmap, we were able to quickly start testing possible options with the realization that whatever the end result, it needed to be simple and intuitive technology: a product that could be quickly adopted by smallholders because it solved the problem that limited their growth and provided them with a distinctive piece of equipment to take pride in.

Breakthrough Design Features

• Separate an aboveground power source from the below-water pump assembly to allow the use of less expensive, more available, and more efficient motors.

• Simple, appropriately-scaled lineshaft to transmit the rotation from an aboveground power source to a below-waterline pump end.

• Centrifugal pump design that allows slower lineshaft RPM’s reducing wear from friction, vibration, and turbid water while maintaining sufficient flow rate and head pressure.

• Pump design allows for gradual, load-free startup extending the life expectancy of impellers, lineshaft, power source, and transmission parts.

• Operates from multiple power source options including small gasoline two and four-stroke engines, electric-grid enabled AC motors, photovoltaic solar panel enabled DC motors, and fuel generator enabled electric AC or DC motors.

• Right-to-repair design philosophy making each component and subassembly maintainable and repairable by the smallholder or local technician.

• Modular design allowing a baseline, “entry-level” system of surface, transmission, and pump assemblies that remain constant as power options and performance specifications are changed or upgraded.

Product Notes

• Global Good’s Target Product Profile (TPP) outlined specific features for a pump invention with cost constraints for materials of under $300. While the clean energy of solar power was mentioned in a support document, the solar panels needed to lift the given amount of water to the required height, would be 500 watts costing an estimated $500 for just the energy collection means.

• The idea of utilizing small, efficient 4-stroke engines provided an entry-level model with an estimated material cost for the complete irrigation system remaining under the $300 limit and the TPP specified target for the retail cost from a local supplier to the smallholder of $800.

• An $800 irrigation pump investment would generate enough extra income for a smallholder meeting the base criteria, to allow for an 18 month payback while still realizing the key benefits of year-round food production (i.e. increased earnings, better nutrition, health care, and education).

• The majority of materials that are needed for the current design arrive in final form making the production of units primarily an assembly operation, minimizing startup manufacturing costs.

• Decentralized assembly locations could be established near areas of high smallholder adoption to lower costs of importation and freight and provide the benefit of additional job creation (i.e. assembly workers, machinists, welders, warehousing), with cottage industry opportunities for repair shops (i.e. rebuilding motors and engines and pump restoration).

Product Links

Updated product images and video links coming soon…

Company

Allied H20, Inc. is an Oklahoma benefit corporation, making evident our mission-first priorities and was named in recognition of the relationships forged over 40 years with individuals and companies that are bringing their expertise alongside ours in the development of solution-based products.