6.5.1 Standard of living

Since agriculture is of much importance for the economies under development, it is desirable that sustainable agriculture leads to improvement of farmers’ standard of living as well as their income. In this section, a small-scale biomethanation plant in a rural area of Thailand is taken up as an example. A small farm gave animal manure as feedstock for anaerobic digestion. Manure from 5 cows was feedstock. Product biogas was used for cooking. It was expected to be sufficient for 3-times cooking for 1 hour for a daily basis. In this sense, the small-scale biomethanation is desirable since the farmers can use the cattle manure in their own farm, and the product gas can be used for their own purpose. Utilization of the fermentation residue as fertilizer resulted in the recycling, reducing the amount of chemical fertilizer. It is usual for the Thai farmers to use chemical fertilizer that is not sustainable, and the product compost from this biomethanation plant is helpful to switch to sustainable agriculture. As a result, the plant achieved the local recycling of cattle manure as energy (biogas) and material (compost). Another good aspect of this biomethanation plant was the increase in farmers’ hygiene. The number of flies reduced after introduction of the plant.

The plant investigated in 2006 was the only one under operation, and other two were under
construction (Fig. 6.5.1). The reason for this should be the farmers’ ignorance on this technology. During the discussion with Thai people, it was pointed out that education of people is important. In the rural area of Thailand, the literacy rate is not high. Actually, the investigated plant was a demonstration one fully supported by the local government to show neighbors the effectiveness of the biomethanation plant. In this sense, it is important to supply proper information on this technology to the farmers.

What is important for the biomass utilization for farmers to be effective is the accessibility of the biomass plant or biomass collecting site from farmers. Even if farmers possess or produce biomass feedstock, it is nothing if they do not have access to the sites where it can be made use of.