The Downside Of Serfdom

I posted about the human hamster wheels being touted as a carbon offset scheme by Western companies back in September of last year. The company involved in that scheme was shipping "treadle pumps" to India and touting it as human power to offset global warming. Well, I have no idea if the Indians got wise to this scheme and started shipping the pumps to Malawi, if the same company is involved or if this is a separate development. But farmers in Malawi are protesting furiously. Because operating the pumps all day makes the farmers too tired to have sex.

LILONGWE (Reuters) – Malawi will investigate fears that labour-intensive manual irrigation pumps distributed to poor farmers are hurting their sexual performance.
 
The farmers say using the pump makes them too tired for sex and have voiced their anger to the government.

"The government is aware of the problem, the parliamentarian committee on irrigation is also concerned about it and we intend to start probing and finding out if the pumps are really to blame for the problem," Adrina Mchiela, principal secretary in the Irrigation and Water Development Ministry, told Reuters.

The high-capacity treadle pump, touted as a major reason for improved food security in the southern African country, is designed to lift water from shallow wells and surface sources.

As is pointed out in the link in the other post, treadle pumps were outlawed in British prisons many years ago as being too cruel a punishment for prisoners. But apparently, being a carbon serf makes the punishment acceptable.

One wonders if this side effect was already known about, however. One wonders.