In the face of climate change, governments have been keen on building the resilience of their citizens to adapt to climate change. In Africa, this narrative is not too from the truth; the government of Uganda has set up the Operation Wealth Creation (OWC) initiative to enhance household participation in commercial agriculture. Through this initiative, households are facilitated with farming inputs to boost their income in an effort to eradicate poverty.
To strengthen its resilience efforts, the OWC has been able to have an interface with biogas technology in Kanungu District, Uganda. During a training for one of it’s hubs: Omukuzi W’Omutima (OWM) the CEO of the organization was approached by a biogas marketing officer to promote the uptake of biogas and its related products like bio-slurry to farmers.
OWM is a community-based organization that has partnered with the government of Uganda to manage its stock farm in Uganda. The farm is part of the OWC programme to promote dairy farming in the district by giving farmers in-calf heifers.
Following successful biogas training, the community based organisation entered into an agreement with Biogas Solutions Uganda (a national implementing agency of the Africa Biogas Partnership Programme) to promote biogas technology. The new agreement now requires that for any farmer who gets a cow(s) to construct a bio-digester. This agreement has so far seen the construction of 25 bio-digesters in the district.
Furthermore, the partnership has resulted into the launch of the sale of the bio-slurry to boost agricultural production. The move will see the use of bio-slurry as an organic fertilizer and pesticide by farmers.
OWM has also partnered with micro-finance institutions like Post Bank that has so far issued over 10 biogas loans to the farmers within the community.
Stories of change such as this continue to show that biogas is not only powering lives but transforming communities and building their resilience to have alternatives of clean energy and practice sustainable agriculture in the face of climate change.
About the Africa Biogas Partnership Programme
The Africa Biogas Partnership Programme (ABPP) is a Public Private Partnership between Hivos, SNV and the Directorate General for International Cooperation (DGIS) of the Netherlands Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Its aim is to contribute to the achievement of the Sustainable Development Goals through construction of 100,000 bio-digesters as a local, renewable energy source and the development of a commercially viable and market-oriented biogas sector.
