DETERMINANTS OF ADOPTING BIOGAS TECHNOLOGY THE CASE OF ALABA DISTRICT

Abstract

The study to identify the determinants of biogas technology adoption. Moreover, it aimed to assess the role of the technology in generating socio-economic and environmental benefits for smallholders in rural areas of Alaba district. The study considered 316 households as a sample selected using a systematic sampling technique. Both descriptive statistics and binary Logit models were used to analyze the data. Adoption of biogas technology is significantly determined by access to credit, a number of cattle size, the total annual income of a household head, educational level of a household head, age of the household head, family size, farmland size, distance to fuel woods, distance to the market and distance to water source. Due to the installation of the biogas plant, there is an annual reduction of fuel wood consumption approximately 79.2 bundle of firewood (2534.4 kg) per year per household and provides each biogas households an equivalent saving of 11,880 Birr per year at the local rate of Birr 150 per 32 kg of firewood. All the surveyed households used kerosene (average of 2 liters per month per household and 24 L per year) as a source of lighting. Each household spent Birr 38 and Birr 410.4 per month and per year, respectively for charcoal consumption, which amounts to 95.6 kg which is equal to 828 Birr. The study revealed that biogas installation made each household to save 18.3 hours per week (2.6 hours per day) on average in reducing the overall household workload from fuel wood collection, cooking, cleaning utensils/kitchen materials). Moreover, technology adoption may reduce physical stress remarkably. The majority (79.1 %) of the sample biogas users realized that the utilization of biogas technology highly reduced the problem of health through the declined use of traditional biomass fuels.