Study On Biogas Technology Adoption And Its Impacts On Farmer's Livelihood

As a result of the evolution of the global warming,energy scarcity,and traditional energy consumption pattern,Pakistan has started renewable energy development program including promotion of biogas technology adoption in rural areas.The per capita energy consumption of the country is very low especially in rural areas where firewood remains as a major energy source.This research intended to find the factors affecting the Bio-Gas Technology(BGT)adoption decision of farmers,the process of BGT adoption,the reasons for successful BGT adoption and unsuccessful BGT adoption,and impacts of successful BGT adoption on livelihoods of farming households in the southern part of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Province.Quantitative data were collected from randomly sampled 491 respondents,among which 150 were BGT users and 341 were non-users.Binary logistic regression test,paired T-tests,and frequency distributions were used to analyze quantitative data.In addition,qualitative data collection tools such as Participatory Rural Appraisal(PRA)and group interviews were also used to verify the quantitative findings and get further knowledge.Results revealed that despite the biogas project in the study area for the duration of 3 years,the extent of BGT adoption has been found very low(11.6%).Results from both binary logistic regression test and group interview,reveal that internal factors affecting BGT adoption are mainly socio-economic ones,such as personal attitude,households' fuel scarcity,distance to access fuel sources,cultivated-land-area,livestock's number,education,family size and income.The external factors related to BGT adoption include lack of advertisements on media by those organizations involved in BGT dissemination;and institutional barriers such as inadequate government support in BGT dissemination,lack of financial support with rural people and lack of provision of sufficient technical support services for installation and maintenance of BGT.The relevant reasons of successful and failed adoptions were also analyzed.The main reasons for successful adoption include farmers' high motivation and rationality,a certain level of attained education,better communication with Foundation for Integrated Development Action(FIDA-BGT operating NGO in the area)during the construction phase,and proper operation and maintenance of bio-digesters on daily basis.The main reasons of failed adoption include farmers' illiteracy,irrationality and low level of motivation;use of poor quality of construction materials for building Bio-Digester(BD);improper operation and maintenance of BD;inadequate planning and monitoring of FIDA;and poor quality of bio-digesters' construction caused by masons with lower expertise.Results reveal that successful BGT adoption has significant positive impacts on farmers'livelihood.With regards to human capital,BGT adoption significantly saves time on collecting fuel materials,as a result of which,the male labors spend more time on farm work and children in the household spend more time on their studies.Similarly,use of biogas saves cooking time for women thereby providing them more time for doing other productive activities like home-based activities and doing small-scale embroidery business.BGT adoption also improves households' hygiene.Significant reduction of eye infection incidences,respiratory diseases and fire-related injuries has also been observed in the BGT adopted households.However,BGT adoption benefits children'education to a certain extent.Wellbeing has been improved for all kinds of household members i.e.men,women,and children.Moreover,with the use of biogas in the households,the amount of smoke and the work burden in the kitchen are both reduced.Financial capital has also been with significant improvements such as the households spend less money on buying other fuel materials and chemical fertilizers.Through reduced cutting of wood for fuel,successful BGT users can sell more trees for cash income.BGT adoption also improves social capital,such as improved ability to provide sufficient food to family members,improved mutual support of men&women in all activities,enlarged households' social network and the trend of joining farmers' group.However,both the ability to pay school fees for children and financial support to other family members was not significantly changed.Natural capital has been improved significantly,including improved land fertility with the bio-slury application,increased amount of animal fodder,increased agricultural yield,diversification of crop varieties and,improvement in the integration of crop farming and livestock farming.However,deforestation still exists there associated with increased wood cutting phenomena.It has also been observed that BGT adoption is positively impacting households' physical capital,for instance,improvement in available farm equipment,improvement in communication facility,improvement in fuel energy consumption pattern and improvement in transportation's means at the household level.However,there are no improvements in grain storage capacity and households' infrastructure.All these improvements in farmers' livelihood indicate that BGT can be one of the effective strategies to achieve Sustainable Development Goals(SDGs).