Publications

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This report evaluates the progress made by the Biogas Programme phase I (BP) in Vietnam by using a combination of desk-reviews, interviews and group discussions.

Overall, the programme has achieved tremendous success in meeting its objectives in phase I by exceeding the original plants target by 50% and completing the construction 7 months ahead of schedule. All marketing tools of the project have proven to be effective, with the most successful tool-investigation of potential users and the promotion talks by district technicians.

For further improvement of the promotion and marketing tools, specific recommendations are presented (e.g. the introduction of visual tools and the official involvement of local authorities). The training activities given to BP staff, technicians, masons, and the operation and maintenance of biogas plants for users were among the other positively evaluated elements with few suggestions for improvement (e.g. time for training should be arranged out of farmers’ production time). Furthermore, although subsidy was highly appreciated, stakeholders were not satisfied with the equal subsidy scheme as it did not reflect the discrepancy in economic conditions. The quality control system of the BP was another aspect which was evaluated in a positive way. The application and use of biogas shown that it was used for a wide range of activities, such as cooking, lighting, drying teas, etc. and that farmers used bio-slurry as fertilisers for their crops or as feed for livestock. The specific strengths and weaknesses of the BP in Vietnam, together with recommendations are available in the report.

The National Biodigester Programme of Cambodia has undertaken a Biodigester User Survey (BUS) with two main objectives:

• To evaluate the effect of domestic biodigester installations, as perceived by the user, by conducting a representative quantitative random survey of 120 households in 8 provinces as well as how the users have experienced the programme activities such as promotion, construction, quality assurance, training and after-sales service;
• To evaluate the impact of the program on sustainable development and on a number of GHG emission causing activities, such as fossil and fuel wood consumption and manure management practices.

The biodigester user profile details on the socio-economic condition of the households; numbers of animals owned; and cooking practices. Awareness of biogas technology and decision making in the households is surveyed, as well as the construction costs for biodigesters and loans provided. Mason skills and trainings, like bio-slurry or operation trainings, are assessed.

The study elaborates on the performance of biodigesters and the owner’s satisfaction levels. Savings in terms of time and finances provide insight in the effects of switching to biogas use. The few negative elements found in the survey are far outweighed by the enormous benefits of the biodigesters to the rural farmers’ lives. The biodigesters result in a sustainable development, especially through the incredible improvement in the cooking environment, with no more smoke, soot or ashes; the quality of the biogas light is evaluated brighter than fluorescent lights; and the organic bio-slurry fertiliser increasing rice and vegetable yields and improving the soil quality.

The National Biodigester Programme of Cambodia has undertaken a Biodigester User Survey (BUS) with three main objectives:

• To evaluate the effect of domestic biodigester installations, as perceived by the user, by conducting a representative quantitative random survey of 150 households using biodigesters constructed under the NBP in 8 provinces in Cambodia;
• To evaluate how the users have experienced the programme activities such as promotion, construction, quality assurance, training and after-sales service;
• To evaluate the impact of the programme and how it contributes to sustainable development and how it reduces GHG emissions from fossil and non-renewable fuel wood consumption and manure management practices. 

A sample of 150 households was chosen out of the total households in the 12 chosen districts. The biodigester user profile details on the socio-economic condition of the households; numbers of animals owned; and cooking practices.

Awareness of biogas technology and decision making in the households is surveyed, as well as the construction costs for biodigesters and loans provided. Mason skills and trainings, like bio-slurry or operation trainings, are assessed.

The study elaborates on the performance of biodigesters and the owner’s satisfaction levels. Savings in terms of time and finances provide more insight in the effects of switching to biogas use. The survey provides detailed conclusions and recommendation to the programme.

This study assesses the impact of the Indonesia Domestic Biogas Programme on health, sanitation and socio-economic conditions, the physical status, functionality, operation and maintenance of the plants, user satisfaction, impact on agriculture, environment, energy use and emission reduction and measure the level of gender sensitivity. The biogas user survey was conducted towards 169 of biogas user households.

The survey concluded that:

• Biogas program brings tremendous benefits for the farmers. Farmers’ investment to construct biogas plant is actually a very good value for money;
• The economic benefits based on the energy saving only, so investment in biogas plant is actually coverable within 42 months of use;
• The use of bio-slurry as fertiliser is already quite high. However, due to the oversupply of bio-slurry and dung; so the existence of biogas plant is not yet able to improve condition of the surrounding sanitation. On the other hand, the economical use of the oversupplied bio-slurry and dung, namely by selling it to other parties, is still very minim;
• Biogas plant is not only positive for female, but also for male;
• Construction quality of biogas plant is good/very good. The main weaknesses are on quality of the mixer, pipe, manometer and the stove;
• There is strong indication that number of biogas stoves owned affects to the intensification of biogas usage. It also leads to a positive reduction of usage of other energy sources, particularly firewood.

The Lao Biogas Pilot Project (BPP) was established in November 2006 with the signing of a Memorandum of Understanding between SNV and the Department of Livestock and Fisheries (DLF) inside the Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry. The aim of the BPP is to establish a sustainable commercial market for the deployment of household biogas digester technology, resulting in the reduction of biomass resource depletion and a significant improvement in the quality of life of the families concerned.

An important part of the BPP’s monitoring plan is to conduct a survey of biogas users (BPP customers) once a year. This provides data on the level of impact that the program is having, and can also indicate trends and issues for management attention. Similar surveys are conducted by the SNV biogas programs in other countries such as Vietnam and Cambodia. This allows some benchmarking and learning opportunities. The first Biogas User Survey (BUS) in Laos was conducted in December 2007, the second survey was conducted in January 2009 and the third survey was conducted in June 2010.

This report presents the results of the Biogas User Survey conducted in 2004 and 2005 in Nepal. Under the framework of SNV/BSP-N and AEPC several studies have been conducted by different reputed institutions to assess the impact of biogas on users. In keeping with previous year's survey (EastConsult, 2002/2003 and 2003/2004), the present study is initiated by AEPC in view of monitoring the effects/impacts of biogas program on the users and acquire hard and comparable data (between users and non-users) on specific topics that provide an input for an improved IEIA reporting.

The Survey Team was mobilized in 15 districts comprising of the Hill and Terai, covering five development regions of the country. As stipulated in TOR, 337 households (229 with Biogas and 108 without Biogas) were sampled for this study covering low penetration - high penetration districts of Hill and Terai with due consideration of socio-cultural settings.

The principal objective of the Biogas Users' Survey 2004/2005 is to evaluate impacts of biogas installed under Biogas Support Programme with a focus on energy, health & sanitation and agricultural system, socio-economic conditions, environmental and gender concern. The report also elaborates on the construction, operation and maintenance of the biodigester, the institutional aspects of biogas, as well as the company’s viewpoint about biogas users. In addition to local impacts the survey does also provide information to evaluate the World environmental impacts of biogas plants, particularly those relating to World climate change.

The Biogas Users’ Survey 2007/08 is intended to provide an overview on the Biogas Support Programme's implementation and measure its success in terms of both qualitative and quantitative achievements.

The general objective of Biogas Users’ Survey 2007/08 is to make a comprehensive assessment of the impacts of the installed biogas plants on energy, health & sanitation, agricultural systems, socio-economic condition, environment and gender. Besides, the local impact of biogas, this survey is also expected to provide information to evaluate the global environmental impacts of biogas plants in the context of Clean Development Mechanism (CDM). Furthermore, aspects of the construction, operation and maintenance of biodigesters are assessed.

The biogas plant, as per the present finding, shows a strong positive impact on socio-economic status of the user households. Biogas plants have helped in saving time on various activities like collecting fuel wood, preparing dung cake, taking care of livestock, cooking and cleaning utensils. People with adequate cash in hand or those who have collateral to take loan have been observed installing biogas plant thereby making it inaccessible to the poor and marginal people. Further conclusions and recommendations are provided.

The Biogas Users’ Survey 2009/10 is conducted in order to find out the operational status of the biogas plants registered under CDM Project Activity I and provides a qualitative as well as quantitative documentation on status of demography, socio-economic state, health and hygiene and environmental conditions of the biogas user households.

The objective of the Biogas Users’ Survey 2009/10 is to make a comprehensive assessment of the impacts of the CDM Registered Project biogas plants on energy, health and sanitation, agricultural production, socio-economic condition, and environment. Besides, the local impact of biogas, the survey is also expected to provide information to evaluate the global environmental impacts of biogas plants in the context of CDM.

135 samples of the total registered biogas plants registered under Biogas CDM Project Activity 1 were taken for the annual survey. From the findings, it can be concluded that the shortage of firewood seems to be the main reason for installing biogas. Users of biogas plants are satisfied with the plant operation. The reasons for the satisfaction are smokeless kitchen, efficiency in cooking and washing utensils, saving fuel wood and tasty food. Appliances failure in the kitchen seems to be major technical problem faced by the users and needs to be paid attention to.

The Biogas Users’ Survey 2009/10 is conducted in order to find out the operational status of the biogas plants registered under CDM Project Activity II and provides a qualitative as well as quantitative documentation on status of demography, socio-economic state, health and hygiene and environmental conditions of the biogas user households.

The objective of the Biogas Users’ Survey 2009/10 is to make a comprehensive assessment of the impacts of the CDM Registered Project biogas plants on energy, health and sanitation, agricultural production, socio-economic condition, and environment. Besides, the local impact of biogas, the survey is also expected to provide information to evaluate the global environmental impacts of biogas plants in the context of CDM.

135 samples of the total registered biogas plants registered under Biogas CDM Project Activity 2 were taken for the annual survey. From the findings, it can be concluded that the shortage of firewood seems to be the main reason for installing biogas. Users of biogas plants are satisfied with the plant operation. The reasons for the satisfaction are smokeless kitchen, efficiency in cooking and washing utensils, saving fuel wood and tasty food. Appliances failure in the kitchen seems to be major technical problem faced by the users and needs to be paid attention to.

The objectives of this Biogas Users’ Survey are to:
- Determine the socio-economic and demographic characteristics of the biogas user households;
- Assess the level of satisfaction in terms of the benefits and functioning of the biogas plants;
- Determine the outcome of installing biogas plants on households with regards to energy, health and sanitation, agricultural productivity, socio-economic conditions, environment and gender aspects.

A qualitative and quantitative approach has been used for collecting data from the selected users. A structured questionnaire was mainly administered focusing on user satisfaction aspects, economic effectiveness of the biogas plant, and other related socio-economic impacts after the installation of the plant on the lives of the family members. A total of 130 households were surveyed in seven districts of Punjab.

The findings of this survey indicate that biogas is an effective source of fuel quite feasible for the rural areas of Pakistan. The users’ feedback reflects a high level of satisfaction in terms of functionality, operations and manageability of the plant. However, the cost of the plant does hamper scaling up of the programme as most households don’t have the required cash for its installation.

Recommendations emerging from the study are mainly:
- There is a need to strengthen the marketing mechanisms and promote the biogas use at the rural level through more hands-on mobilization and motivation;
- The programme and biogas companies need to strengthen their monitoring, supervision and follow-up mechanisms as these are important components for the sustainability and scaling of the programme.

The principal objective of this survey is to evaluate the effect of domestic biogas installations. To this extent, the survey shall assess relevant and unrelated aspects like energy, agriculture, health and sanitation, environment, economics and users convenience.  The BUS aims to get a better understanding of the user’s opinion and satisfaction, besides its difficulties and constraints for operation and maintenance. Additionally, BUS seeks to deliver trends on the biogas program development and its impact. The methodology of the survey consisted of defining the content of the structured questionnaire forms, in depth interviews and observations. The survey sample was of 407 households (382 users, 25 non-users). 

The main conclusions are: using biogas helps families to save time in cooking, cleaning, fuel collection/buying. Families have more time for business activities. However, the biogas plant does not affect livestock/plants breeding. The surveyed households mentioned that the subsidy (VND 1 million/per biogas plant) is quite low and the process of obtaining is slow. The knowledge of mason and quality of construction is quite good; almost biogas plants still operate well. Extensive recommendations are provided on the basis on the conclusions.

The biogas user survey 2009 evaluates the the use of biogas and biogas plants of 211 households.

The biodigester user profile details on the socio-economic condition of the households; numbers of animals owned; and cooking practices. Awareness of biogas technology and decision making in the households is surveyed, as well as the construction costs for biodigesters and loans provided. Mason skills and trainings, like bio-slurry or operation trainings, are assessed.

The study elaborates on the performance of biodigesters and the owner’s satisfaction levels. Savings in terms of time and finances provide insight in the effects of switching to biogas use.

Detailed conclusions and recommendations are provided.

The overall objective of the Biogas User Survey (BUS) is to assess the impact of the biogas program on smallholder farms.  The BUS aims to get a better understanding of the user’s opinion and satisfaction, besides its difficulties and constraints for operation and maintenance. Additionally, BUS seeks to deliver trends on the biogas program development and its impact. The methodology of the survey consisted of defining the content of the structured questionnaire forms, in depth interviews and observations. The survey sample was of 383 households (303 users, 80 non-users). 

The main conclusions are: users are very satisfied with their investment in biogas plants since it provides them great and multiple benefits, in overall they are satisfied with the services provided by the biogas program staff. Important to mention is that more than half of households (65.3%) attached the toilet to their biogas plants in order to solve the human waste disposal problem. There is a trend to enlarge the pig herd once users accustomed to the use of biogas plants, among the 72% of biogas users that did increase it in average acquired 2.9 heads of pig showing that biogas goes behind the pure production of energy and it offers a broad range of advantages for people in rural areas. However the survey raised a few issues within training, operation, maintenance, warranty and biogas appliances that are in need of a revision.

This Biogas User Survey (BUS) report aims to evaluate the quality of services rendered by Vietnamese Biogas Program such as training, construction, quality control; carry out an assessment on the operation and maintenance aspects of biogas plants, slurry used, biogas used by households; evaluation of the functions and roles of Biogas Programme and other organisations/ individuals in project propagation; and assessment of impacts of biogas plants on socio-economic, environmental, health and sanitation, time-use, fuel substitution condition of the users; and validation and verification of multi-benefits claimed by the program.

To obtain this information, different methods were used: collection of secondary data from the desk review, and a field survey that used structured interviews and observations. The total number of surveyed households was 323 biogas users and 80 non-biogas users.

Currently, 92% of the bio-digesters are in operation; around 80% of the interviewees remarked about a decrease in dust, soot and fume; On average, each biogas users save 210,000 VND monthly for fuel used in cooking; 89% of the interviewees revealed they could save time for collecting firewood and other kinds of fuel; and about 70- 80% respondents use the bio-slurry for fertiliser or/ and feeding fish.

Key recommendations include: Prioritization on subsidy from the biogas project; effectiveness of communication; more training for biogas users; and amount of manure fed into the bio-digester.

The Enhancing Milled Rice Production in Lao PDR Project (EMRIP) was jointly funded by the Food Facility of the European Union (90%) under its ‘facility for rapid response to soaring food prices in developing countries (2009) and Helvetas/SNV (10%). EMRIP built on the experiences of earlier work of SNV’s Rice Value Chain programme, and Helvetas’ Organic rice (PRORICE) programme It expanded to work in 6 provinces, and introduced additional elements notably; upgrading mills through grants of equipment, and policy dialogue to address bottlenecks in rice trade system in Lao PDR. The overall project budget was €2,348,124 over a relatively short implementation period of 23 months. The key implementation partners were the two NGOs; Helvetas and SNV with the national partner; Department of Agriculture of the Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry. This final evaluation was carried out by an external consultant with substantial experience in the agriculture sector development in Lao PDR.

The objectives of this study are:

- To evaluate the effect of bio-slurry as soil conditioner applied in combination with different levels of the recommended dose of chemical nitrogen on growth and yield of okra and vegetable crop;

- To evaluate the effect of bio-slurry of different ages as soil conditioner and N nutrient source applied alone and in ratios of the recommended dose of chemical nitrogen on growth and plant growth regulators to improve the growth and yield of and yield of rice and wheat crop.

Recommendations are:

- The use of bio slurry in combination with chemical fertilizers for improving yield of okra was better than compost used in combination with bio slurry;

- The preliminary studies showed that the use of 50% of recommended nitrogen from biogas slurry and d 50% from chemical fertilizer was the best combination for improving growth and yield of rice, potato and wheat. Further increase in yield was recorded when this combination was used in combination with PGPR or PGR. Therefore these combinations may be used for improving growth and yield of these crops;

- The preliminary study on okra also showed that the use of bio slurry @600 kg/ha as soil conditioner can also improve the yield of okra.

The objective was to determine to what extent the Biogas Slurry Extension Pilot Programme had achieved its objectives, what the difficulties were, to assess the performance of the Slurry Extension Officers (SEOs) and to develop some guidelines for future implementation of the programme including the best host to implement it. The technology is extended to 811 farmers in 23 districts. All farmers started storing the slurry in the compost pits. They use 3.6 kg of dry materials per day to absorb the moisture of the slurry as well as for composting.

All had the feeling that the slurry should be better than FYM and when composted it, it yields higher than the dried slurry and ordinary compost. The farmers have understood the negative effect of drying it on the filed. So, they incorporate it into the soil as soon as it is transported. The farmers and the managers of concerned offices also evaluated the job performance of the SEOs satisfactory. There has been some limitation on the logistic and administrative support to the SEOs; they were deprived of the minimum office facilities and faced administrative difficulties. The managers did not understand the importance of the programme and did not accept the accountability towards the programme.

Based on the suggestion made by the managers and the SEOs, it is recommended that this programme should be of permanent nature. NGO is also considered one of the suitable potential hosts of this programme. A model involving NGO to implement this programme on pilot scale is also presented.