Biogas for women empowerment
June 6, 2008
Biogas for women empowerment
Dr.AHM.Mustain Billah
There is growing literature on household energy and women empowerment. The focus in the literature is mainly on poor rural women, energy and poverty alleviation. The World development Report 2000/1 (Theme: Attacking Poverty) identified three common factors that broadens the definition of poverty, this includes (a) empowerment; this refers to empowering the poor engaging in economic activities and integrating them in decision making process by addressing inequalities including gender inequalities (b) security; indicates risk and vulnerability including rural poor women especially from indoor air pollution (c) opportunity, exploring the potentials of income generation within home and homestead.
These issues have two important implications first; poverty has many dimensions to look into like income poverty, health and education poverty and energy security and so forth. Secondly, more policy instruments become relevant for fighting poverty when the definition of poverty is broadened. The article focused on how the serious bird flu could be possible to overcome. Exploring the potentials of household energy harnessing use of poultry litter for biogas.
Bird flu pushes poultry industry under threat towards poverty alleviation: Bangladesh is a developing country with population density of 983 per kilometer (2007) where more than 40% people are under the poverty line. The poverty occurs due lack of employment opportunity and poor intake of nutrition. The poultry industry is growing very fast in the country since 1981, providing very cheap protein to the common mass. The industry is also providing direct and indirect employment opportunity about 6 million people of the country, which accounts for 1.6 percent of the nation’s gross domestic product (GDP). This clearly indicated the potentiality of the industry towards poverty reduction. Low rate of literacy and inadequate awareness made people not to be conscious about the viral diseases like bird flu. The poultry industry in Bangladesh has immense opportunity with a 50-60 percent annual growth. Currently, this sector involves sum $2 billion of investment, while domestic birds at farms and households are estimated to be around 20 crore. Outbreaks of the deadly virus had badly shaken the country’s poultry sector with reported losses of over $600 million, as well as the closure of thousands of poultry farms. Almost all rural households keep chickens (89%) as a source of cheap protein, with about 2.4 million rural women depending on backyard chicken farming as their main source of livelihood.
The studies indicated that monthly consumption of poultry meat has declined from 26,600 metric tonnes (mt) in October 2007 to 12,000 mt in March 2008 – a fall of nearly 55 percent in four months, as stated by general secretary of WPSA’s Bangladesh chapter. It is reported that about 50 percent of poultry farms have been closed and 2.5 million people out of the six million involved in the industry have been made jobless. In fact, many people have removed chicken and eggs from their menus altogether. This clearly indicated that along with rice price hike and lowering the consumption of poultry meat pushed the people to remain both in income and health poverty that needs to be addressed immediately. Poultry litter on the other hand has tremendous potentiality for generating biogas and household energy. The field experience revealed that there is high demand for biogas connection in the rural areas.
Challenging bird flu: The way it has been overcome on the ground
Government of Bangladesh undertaking training program for senior official, which is an innovative type of “training workshop” that focuses on how to design a result oriented project and ensure its application on the ground towards achieving targeted results. The training program is supported by DFID concentrating on changing mindset, promoting innovative ideas, analytical skill, forward looking attitudes and bringing dynamism in the leadership of civil bureaucracy. The name of the training program is “Managing At the Top” (MATT 2).
Under managing at the top (MATT 2) a six member senior government official from different ministries “performance improvement project” (PIP) team undertook a project in Duguria village under Gazipur Sadar with the objectives to be achieved are (i) setting up a biogas plant using poultry litter to save cooking by 50 percent and improving health condition from indoor air pollution (ii) empowering rural women engaging their more time for supplementary income and decision making process especially in cooking and home gardening.
During undertaking the project there was serious threat of bird flu all over the country including Gazipur district. This was real concern for the team to overcome the threats. In order to address the challenges the main initiative the team undertook was that they made a checklist about the protective measures of the poultry farm. This was finally be ensured effectively. The farm owner is a villager having 1200 layer birds with no knowledge about protective measure on bird flu. When he was asked about the danger he replied “Allah Bachabe” (god will save), even the farm was not registered. The surrounding of the farm was dirty with very bad smell and flies moving around. It was even difficult to go there and stand around. The farm was shaded with branches of trees where insects have easy access to enter.
Against the backdrop, the team introduced twenty following measures for protection. These include (i) use of apron (dress) for the workers inside the farm, (ii) use of gloves (iii) gumboat (foot wear) (iv) chopping of the branches of trees (v) Netting around the farm (vi) cleaning the drain around the farm (vii) restricted the entrance of unprotected and unnecessary people (vii) using of protective measures compulsory for visitor if any (viii) keeping these dresses inside the farm (x) washing the dress twice in a week (ix) spraying livestock official’s prescribed medicine around the farm twice /at least once in a day (x) to be registered as required by law (xi) separate home chicken from wild or broiler ones (xii) ensured to make a footbath made of bricks (2/x2/) where they will use TH 4 chemicals (xiii) fumigation of the room before keeping the small chickens (xiv) ensured getting advice of livestock officials and their frequent visit to the farm (xv) burying or burning the dead birds (xvi) hygiene disposal of chicken faeces (xvii) reporting sick and dead birds to local vegetarian and nearby telecenter (xviii) not to touch dead bird with unprotected hand (xix) wash hand very properly (xx) keep courtyard clean .
It was learnt from the local source that local Index Agro Industry Ltd took successful protective measures of their poultry farm. The team made a telephonic discussion with chairman Mr Mazharul Quader about the measures they undertook. He shared the team the way he made his farm protective and that works very well. The PIP team replicated the experience of the Index Agro Industry Ltd with poultry owner Mr. Hasan to follow with other beneficiary members. The team regularly supervised the protective measure very carefully and effectively that works to protect the farm against all potential threats and kept the farm out of danger.
Linking biogas and biofertilizer technology with poultry litter: Bangladesh has the potential for developing 4 million biogas plants, especially in the rural areas. Performance Improvement Project (PIP) group is linking up biogas technology by harnessing use of poultry litter including improving agricultural productivity by using bio-fertilizer towards exploring sustainable income generation potential. The team also found other poultry farms owners are interested in establishing biogas plant because it helps them to get rid of poultry wastes including bad smell releasing to the air and atmosphere and at the same time meet their household energy needs as they witnessed in PIP study area. This also ensures earn extra income to be earned by selling biogas and using slurry in their farm as supplementary fertilizer.
Government of Bangladesh intends to further scale up its successful implementation at grass rot level. This effort are also prevailing in NGO communities. Grameen Shokti (GS) has developed an integrated and sustainable model for expanding biogas program. The program is based on market approach. Responding to the community desire and Government intention PIP group plays the role of a facilitator, not of a provider following the existing model of biogas plant PIP group made an initial investment exploring resources from different government sources such as Zilla parishad, Gazipur, Ministry of Women and Children Affairs and Bangladesh Council for Science and Industrial Research (BCSIR). PIP depends on the goodwill of the community people for its success. The supports of the said organizations help the PIP group to establish a biogas plant and promote other income generating activities including homestead plantation and gardening .In order to achieve the household energy security objective i.e to set up a biogas plant, this requires the adequate quantity supply of poultry litter should be ensured. A protective and precautionary measures successfully put poultry farm out of danger. Later on a core group of ten women have been identified in a village Duguria under Bhowal Mirzapur of Gazipur Sadar Upazila. They have been familiarized with use of modern stoves and replace the existing ones. They have been imparted training how to use modern stove for cooking using biogas. During the course of training, the trainees have been demonstrated how to use the burners i.e. how to switch on and off the burner under the supervision of an expert and replaced the conventional ones. After the training, the women were found to be comfortable to use the new burners.
Women were interested in replacing conventional stoves because of the following reasons, this include (i) they are mainly responsible for cooking (ii) they and their children are mainly responsible for collecting and processing fuel from the field that requires 1 to 2 hours a day on average (iii), some of them are mainly responsible for running small business and cooking at the household level, so saving of cooking time is money for them (iv) women and children are the worst sufferers from combustion and smoke. The direct benefits they deriving are (i) offering smoke free fuel and saved them from indoor air pollution. Biogas plants giving the rural women the opportunity to cook in pollution free environment- smokeless kitchens. It has also reduced their cooking time by 50%, rescued them from the burden of collecting firewood that usually took one to two hours a on average (ii) income generating solution: increasing price of kerosene, diesel and other conventional energy sources like firewood made biogas technology an attractive alternative for many rural women (iii) use of organic fertilizer from poultry litter enhanced their income by 30-50 percent like vegetables and homestead plantation and poultry raring in the backyards (iv) saved cooking time of the rural women by 50% (v) one to two hour time a day saved from fuel collection, the release from hardship is in addition (vi) like any other rural women, the women of the project area cook under subhuman conditions, especially in kitchens filled with smoke from biomass fuel combustion, which adversely affect the health of the women of village under study. The field level observation revealed that a large number of rural women suffer from cataract, headache, fatigue, bronchitis, corpulmonale, low birth weight, and lung cancer as reported by women of the project area during conducting the survey. The introduction of biogas no doubt removed the root cause of respiratory and other health related problem towards alleviation of both income and health poverty.
Use of Organic Fertilizer from Poultry litter: This organic fertilizer being generated form biogas plant is used for increasing productivity of the beneficiary of the PIP group in their homestead plantation and their own small agricultural farm in their courtyard and campus and the reminder is marketed for the supplementary income of the beneficiary groups, which has been targeted to be increased 15-20 % but actual achievement was about 50%. An NGO name Mati provided the required technical assistance and ensure quality control. Slurry the byproduct of biogas has the ability to safeguard organic materials such as nitrogen, phosphorous, and potassium, which increases it’s standard as a fertilizer and ensures higher agricultural production.
Advantage of Biogas and Poultry Litter Manure: The biogas plant’s primary purpose is to produce biogas (methane for electricity generation, biogas and LPG for cooking and heating use etc,). and there are many anaerobic digestion plants in use today, which has comparative advantage over composting in many dimensions as shown in the table 1 below:
Nutrient Value of Poultry Litter:
§ Poultry litter consists mainly of poultry manure and bedding material (e.g., pine shavings or peanut hulls and vegetable farms).
§ Poultry litter is used primarily as a source of nitrogen (N), phosphorus (P) and potassium (K), but litter also contains calcium, magnesium, sulfur, and some micronutrients.
§ Nutrient value of litter is generally reported as the pounds of total nutrient per ton.
§ Nitrogen is expressed as total nitrogen and ammonium nitrogen and plant available nitrogen (PAN).
§ Phosphorus is expressed as total phosphate (P2O5)
§ Potassium is reported as total potash (K2O).
Table 2 the manure tested in 1998-1999. Nutrient value of litter can vary 30 to 50% depending on type of bird, feed and moisture content, and the clean-out technique and schedule of individual operations. Adding the enzyme phytase to feed rations increases the utilization of phosphorus in the feed and reduces the need to supplement rations with inorganic phosphorus. Thus, phytase can reduce total phosphate content of poultry litter 20- 40%. To account for this variation, all sources of poultry manure should be analyzed for nutrient content prior to land application.
The field experience of the team clearly indicated that people can’t control nature. The only thing they can develop coping mechanism and prepare emergency response to adapt with nature. Bangladesh will have to survive with bird flu, which may occur again any time. The country needs to get ready to overcome the threats by introducing biosecurity measures all over the country for every time. The potential of the poultry industry must be explored with no alternative options, thus community needs to be sensitized in such a manner so that they will be spontaneous to adapt and adjust with changes of nature.
The other immense potential for the poultry sector is household energy security setting up biogas plant harnessing the use of poultry litter.
In both the cases of promoting poultry industry for poverty reduction and household energy security the most beneficiary group would be the rural women.
This requires integrated policy instruments for poultry industry, waste management and household energy security towards poverty alleviation.
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