Biogas is becoming an important source of energy in Tanzania. It is gradually replacing traditional fossil fuels and, as a regional project shows, is also bringing about a rethink of traditional gender roles.
For Diana Mangula, cooking has become much easier now that she no longer has to struggle with the smoke-emitting firewood she used to burn on her three-stone stove.
Mangula never enjoyed using the firewood that filled her entire house with smoke. But, like most residents of Ibumila village in the Njombe region of Tanzania, she has now found a cleaner source of energy to fulfil her cooking and lighting needs.
Biogas is a clean, combustible, renewable gas produced by organic waste. Agriculture experts say it is much cheaper than traditional fossil fuel since farmers can obtain it from their own resources.
Just a few minutes a day
Mangula, a 37-year-old mother of three, used to spend a lot of time and energy collecting firewood. But ever since she installed a biogas plant four years ago, all her miseries are over as she can now generate enough energy to meet her family’s growing needs, thanks to her three dairy cows.
“Just imagine, I only spend a few minutes every day mixing cow dung with water and the moment I feed it into the digester, I am assured of enough energy,” she said.
The biogas digester consists of two containers, one for mixing manure and water and the other for collecting the resulting biogas which is enough to fire a cooking stove and several gas lanterns.
According to researchers from Sokoine University of Agriculture (SUA) in Morogoro, biogas technology is increasingly becoming a relevant source of energy for households that keep dairy cattle in Njombe, as it covers their cooking and lighting needs and also helps farmers to cut down the use of charcoal, firewood and kerosene.
Joint project
Together with the Norwegian University of Life Sciences (NMBU), SUA is running a project looking at the productivity of the dairy farming system in Njombe.
The majority of people in rural Tanzania who do not have access to grid electricity depend on traditional fossil fuels for lighting and cooking and this exerts huge pressure on the country’s forests.
