Rungwe district lies between latitudes 8030 E and 9030 E and longitudes 330S and 340 S. It is one of the six districts of Mbeya Region, located in the Southern Highlands of Tanzania. The other districts are Kyela, Chunya, Ileje, Mbeya Rural and Mbozi. Rungwe district has a total area of 2211 sq. km of which 75% is arable land (URT, 1997). Of the remaining area, 44.5 sq. km is covered by forest while 498.3 sq. km is either mountainous or residential areas.

The district is one of the densely populated districts in Tanzania (URT, 2002) with a population of 307,270, which is equivalent to 139 persons per square kilometre with an annual growth rate of 0.9% (URT 2010). The district has limited natural vegetation which varies from upper montane forest at higher elevations to the wet woodland (Miombo) at lower elevations. Forestry reserve accounts for 43,749.9 ha and other forests about 65,813 ha (URT, 2008). In recent years, much of this natural vegetation has been cleared/transformed for agriculture, for habitation, and firewood. Most of the remaining natural vegetation is found in government forest reserves and in locally protected areas, though even these areas have been subjected to varying degrees of people driven disturbances.

Rungwe district put great importance to livestock development particularly dairy cattle as one of the major economic activities. In 2005 the district had 26,137 indoor fed dairy cattle with milk production estimated to be 41,000,000 litres per year. The district has 74,450 households and almost half of the households keep some cattle or pigs in their homestead with an average of between 2-6 cattle (Mwakaje, 2008). Smallholder dairy production is an important undertaking and, if adequately supported by appropriate policies and adaptive research technologies, it may contribute significantly towards the household economy, self­sufficiency in milk and national gross domestic product (Swai and Kimambo, 2011). Walshe et al (1991) comments that where there is access to a market, dairying is preferred to meat production since it makes more efficient use of feed resources and provides a regular income to the producer.

Promotion of smallholder dairy farming can solve the problem of rural poor accessing to clean energy like biogas.

The district is also famous for keeping pigs. Rungwe district has about 44,334 pigs which also contribute significantly to the household’s economy and nutrition.

Studies in several African countries, provides a rough sense of the likely economics of introducing biodigesters (Schwengels, 2009) where 2 cows or 1 cow and other livestock like pigs can be appropriate for a family to meet the need of cooking biogas while other research findings suggest that farming households, having 2 (zero-grazed) to 10 cattle or 8 to 40 pigs (or a combination) are enough to produce gas for a household. This means that available number of indoor fed dairy cattle of more than 26,000 and over 44000 pigs, the district can have the capacity of having more than 20000 biodigester, this is about 27% of the district’s households.

However, despite the high level of indoor fed dairy cattle in Rungwe District and the potential to generate biogas as well as the efforts to promote biogas use in the country since 1970s by the government and donors, biogas technology has not well developed in the district to date. The trend of biogas technology in the district shows that the technology started in 1993 when one person adopted installed a biogas plant (Mwakaje, 2008). In 1996, 12 households got the service by contributing half of the cost. This was a pilot project by the Danish Volunteers that intended to raise awareness of the technology. With the exception of the year 1996, adoption of the biogas technology has remained low and more or less declining (URT, 2005). Up to 2007 there were about 100 biogas plants, an equivalent to only 0.13% of the total households in the district. This is even more surprising as the district has limited fuelwood sources as well as other clean energy sources. Available information shows that the district has a demand of cooking energy of 600,000 m3 per annum, while the capability to supply is about 400,000 m3 (URT, 2005), a 33% deficit (Mwakaje, 2008). The scarcity of fuelwood has increased its cost in terms of purchasing price and time used for fetching (Mwakaje, 2008). The use of other clean energy like electricity and solar power is limited due to both cost and reliability (Mwakaje, 2008).

Why the pace of biogas adoption and use in the district has remained stagnant is the main interest of this study. Although, a study by Mwakaje (2008) highlighted some of the constraining factors, it was not exhaustive. The study focused more on the environmental benefits of adopting biogas technology while other equally important issues related to biogas use and adoption such as socio-economic, institutions; awareness as well as policies were not adequately explained. The main objective of the chapter was to come up with an understanding of the reasons for the stagnated biogas use in Rungwe district despite the availability of large number of dairy cattle and other livestock and in an area with highly inadequate fuelwood supply. Specifically, the chapter investigated issues relates to investment costs, expertise availability, role of institutions and policies in influencing biogas use and level of awareness of biogas use among the Rungwe dwellers. Findings from this study will add to the body of knowledge, inform policy makers, donors, service providers, environmentalists and researchers.