Tag Archives: biogas

Zhang Hui’s Hope for His Family

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Zhang Hui's two daughters

by Heifer China

Zhang Hui, his wife, and three children are living in a remote, mountainous village named Baishui in Qiandongnan Miao and Dong Autonomous Prefecture, Guizhou Province. The local economy is limited by a shortage of farmland, water resources and poor transportation. The whole family has only two adults who can work. What’s worse, Zhang Hui’s right leg was injured when he was a migrant worker, which prevented him doing some heavy work. Besides, they have three children who are all at primary school, a 6-year old son named Zhang Zijie and two older daughters named Zhang Ming and Zhang Yan. The low production and larger expenditures lead the family to poverty.

Before the project implementation, Zhang Hui only raised 23 natural-fed chickens and 2 pigs. After the Heifer project was implemented on April 16, 2011, he bought 314 chicks with the gift money and started his pheasant breeding industry. Then he joined the self-help group and became a leader. He accepted trainings of 12 Cornerstones and animal husbandry, and acquired skills in corn and rye planting and pheasant breeding. Moreover, the Kaili Science and Technology Bureau provided him 30,000 Yuan to purchase corn seeds as well as have an additional allowance.

“I had acquired some basic knowledge of pheasants breeding when I was in an eco-rearing base in Kaili. At that time I knew it would make money, but I was too poor then. However, Heifer China came; I have the initial capital to do this,” Zhang Hui said. “I wanted something different, so I choose pheasants instead of pigs, and I want to be professional.” With his hard work, plus the material and technical support from the local government and Heifer China, Zhang Hui had a harvest of both crops and pheasant rearing. By selling pheasants, he had an income of 20,150 Yuan.

In the past 3 months, the family has received electricity, built a bio-gas unit, and bought a refrigerator and an egg incubator. Meanwhile, they have upgraded their house into two floors, which provides another 50 square meters of space. While planning the future, Zhang Hui mentioned at present he would enlarge the chicken-rearing scale to gain more income to support his children’s schooling. The eldest daughter dreamed to be a running athlete. She has kept jogging 4 km per day from home to school for nearly one year. 3 children are top students at school. If they want to go to university, Zhang Hui stated he would definitely afford their tuition no matter how hard he and his wife should work.

Editor’s note: This post is part of a series that follows the progress of specific families, starting at the beginning of their work with Heifer. Initially, this series will focus on our programs in Asia/South Pacific, where our colleagues have chosen one family in each region in the countries where we work and will bring us quarterly updates.

The new second floor addition to Zhang Hui's house

Pheasants on Zhang Hui's family farm

In Context: Cameroon

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Editor’s note: In Context is a new series designed to inform and educate you on Heifer’s work in each country we have a presence. Every two weeks we’ll tackle a different country and examine unique situations related to hunger and poverty, how Heifer works to address them as well as take some time to explore local culture and traditions.

Population: 20 Million
Native greeting: Bonjour! (Hello!)
Capital: Yaounde (second largest city in Cameroon)
Official language: French and English
Local currency: Communaute Financiere Africaine franc (CFA)


Geography
Cameroon is a central African nation bordered by Nigeria, Chad, the Central African Republic, the Republic of Congo, Equatorial Guinea and Gabon. The Gulf of Guinea lies to the southwest of the country and the Sahel region, the zone of transition between the Sahara desert and the Savanna, runs through northern Cameroon. The climate ranges from tropical along the coast to semi-arid and hot in the north.

History
European presence in Cameroon was limited to coastal trade as malaria prevented any significant settlement of the country’s interior. It wasn’t until 1884, after large quantities of Quinine, a malaria suppressant, became available, that Germany colonized and named the country “Kamerun”. Under the League of Nations, post World War I Cameroon was partitioned between France and England, with France given larger geographical share. After a brief armed struggle for independence for French Cameroon in 1955 led by the Union of the Peoples of Cameroon, French Cameroon gained independence in 1960 and was officially named Republic of Cameroon. The following year the largely Muslim northern two-thirds of British Cameroon voted to separate and join Nigeria and the largely Christian southern third voted to join the Republic of Cameroon.
Cameroon is a young country that has yet to establish adequate infrastructure. Roads connecting urban centers to rural areas are far and few. The unemployment rate is at 30% and with 7 out of 10 young people as being under-employed, the Government is making employment, particularly among young people, a priority. Ranked 150th on the 2011 Human Development Index, it is estimated that 48% of the population lives under the poverty line.
Photo courtesy of Heifer International
Poverty in Cameroon is largely a rural phenomenon. 55% of the country’s poor live in rural areas. A 2007 study shows a decline (of about 5 points) of poverty in urban areas whereas as rural areas, especially those in the north saw a rise in poverty by about 3 points. Most affected are women andchildren. About half of the people living in poor households are women and children under the age of 15. A household study conducted in Cameroon in 2007showed that only 18% of rural women have a secondary-level education and 14% of women that are living in the northern parts of the country receiving secondary-level schooling.




Heifer Cameroon
Livestock portfolio: Pigs; dairy cattle; meat goats; sheep; snails; cane rats; poultry; rabbits; guinea pigs and donkeys
Technology portfolio: Integrated crop-livestock agriculture; organic farming; minimum tillage; contour bonds; ethno-veterinary practices; community animal healthcare; bio-sand filters and biogas technology
Issues addressed: Sustainable food systems; income security; nutrition; environment; gender; youth and potable water

Job creation among the rural poor is a step to alleviating poverty in Cameroon. Heifer Cameroon began its work in country by focusing on the dairy industry. Since then, Heifer has expanded to include other livestock species and varied livelihood strategies to assist resource poor families in 6 of Cameroon’s 10 regions.


Photo courtesy of Heifer International
Heifer Cameroon works in collaboration with other NGOs and state institutions like the Ministry of Livestock and the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development in order to reach even more of the resource-poor and vulnerable population.
Heifer Cameroon is Heifer’s oldest program in West Africa.They began their operations in 1974 and has assisted over 30,000 families.

 

Cameroonian Cows Help Cook Dinner

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Raise your hand if you love biogas! (Both my hands are raised, you can be sure.) I was directed to this video by a colleague recently, and it’s a great example of Heifer’s biogas efforts in Africa, how Heifer’s work enables families to provide for themselves, and how connecting with other nonprofit partners and local governments can expand the impact of our work.

In this video, Augustin and Abigail Njita share how their lives have changed from the better since receiving a cow from Heifer in 2009. Their cows provide milk for consumption and sale, as well as manure that is converted into biogas. Heifer has pioneered the use of biogas technology to capture methane from animal waste. The gas is then used for cooking and lighting, providing a clean and healthy power source and reducing the cutting of trees for firewood.

World Toilet Day: Give a Crap

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Ugandan biogas toilet. Photo by Dero Sanford.

Happy World Toilet Day, everyone.

Wondering why there’s a day for toilets (I mean, there’s a day for everything, right?) around the world? I’ll let the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation explain that one. For those of us who take toilets for granted, it’s hard to believe that 2.6 BILLION people poop on the ground because they don’t have any other place to go.

Although we’re not exactly The Toilet People, in many of our projects, sanitation and hygiene are key objectives for the community. We include these topics as part of the training we provide, where needed. In our biogas projects in Uganda, we help participants build composting toilets that connect to their biogas units, helping them contain and then make the most of their family’s waste products.

I took this picture of one of the Ranch’s
composting toilets (a “squatty potty,”
if you will) during my last stay in the
Global Village.

Two of our Learning Centers, Heifer Ranch in Perryville, Arkansas, and Overlook Farm in Rutland, Massachusetts, have composting toilets on their campuses to both educate about toilet conditions around the world and put the compost to use on the growing trees.

So dig in to World Toilet Day and see how you can help make the world a cleaner, healthier place. And while you’re at it, try giving a crap this holiday season.

Weekend Article RoundUp

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One of my favorite parts about Friday is writing the Weekend Article Roundup blog. It allows me the time to re-read the blog articles from the past week to see the great work everyone at Heifer is doing. This week we had 70 purebred cows land in Romania to begin projects in central and western regions, a Heifer staff service day in Hughes, Arkansas, and discussed more about biogas which is used to help reduce the demand for fossil fuel. 

Other blogs to highlight this week:
If you’ve read all the Heifer blogs this week, then are are some other stories we’ve been reading around the office:

Reply Turned Post: Biogas

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Commenter Calvin left the following on Tuesday’s biogas post:

Great thinking, I love this, just wondering what impact methane gas has on global warming? Is this cheap and sustainable? or just cheap, like coal? thanks, love your work!

-Calvin

My response to Calvin was getting lengthy, and I thought it might have more impact if I posted it more widely. Besides, I’m a biogas junkie, so I love any opportunity I get to read, learn and write about biogas.

Biogas stove in Uganda.

Great question, Calvin. Here’s the short answer: it’s cheap AND sustainable. Here’s the more complicated answer:

First, biogas comes from waste, which is obviously quite renewable, as opposed to fossil fuels. Second, the waste (let’s just talk manure from livestock to keep things simple) will emit methane gas no matter what. So, a cow poops in a field, and when that manure breaks down naturally, methane gas is emitted into the atmosphere. (On a small farm like those of our project participants, this isn’t the significant Problem it is like the methane-emitting manure produced on feedlots in the United States and elsewhere, but that’s another story.)

Okay, so biogas works thorough anaerobic digestion, which more efficiently converts the manure into a gas that’s made up of about 60 percent methane and 40 percent carbon dioxide. Burning this biogas reduces the greenhouse gas impact by more than 20 times what the waste would produce naturally. So, biogas is great because it’s a) reducing the impact the waste would have anyway and b) displacing the burning of fossil fuels, which have a larger greenhouse gas impact. Further, biogas is considered part of the natural carbon cycle, since the carbon that is emitted when biogas is burned originated from carbon fixed by plants.

(Sources: http://iopscience.iop.org/1748-9326/3/3/034002/fulltext and http://www.electrigaz.com/faq_en.htm)

Biogas: More than a source of energy

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by Puja Singh  – Heifer Nepal

Poverty has many dimensions. While being poor relates directly to having less to eat, energy is definitely a primary concern for many poor families around the world.  A recent poverty matters blog post looks at how energy directly impacts the poverty situation in many poor countries. 
 
In Nepal, the lack of energy is not just a problem for the poor. The country has continuously had to schedule rolling blackouts for many years now. A general problem intensifies when it reaches the poor. Most of the rural communities are not connected to the grid. Women and girls, primary caregivers for the family, spend hours in a day searching for firewood in the already dwindling forest. These are hours that might have been better spent farming or perhaps, if she is lucky enough, studying.
 
A solution to the current energy situation in Nepal is huge investments in hydro power and solar power fueled by aid and government money. Are they useful? Yes. Are they enough? Probably not. Overlooking the time it will take for these plans to materialize and not addressing the politics that might keep these projects from finishing or even launching, fulfilling the urban energy deficit will still be a priority. People in the cities can pay, enabling the government to pay back the loan from World Bank or some other entity.
 
A better solution is biogas. Many Heifer projects that give buffalos also provide support for installation of a biogas plant. The manure from the animals is used to produce methane gas used as fuel for cooking and to light bulbs. This diagram below explains how it all works, and more information about biogas plant construction can be found here.

 
Heifer’s work in countries with multi-faceted problems like Nepal does not just stop in giving livestock gifts to end hunger. But it can invest in innovative ways which can address other over-arching problems with the use of livestock and agriculture. Yes — biogas provides energy. But it does so much more:
  • Saves time that would be spent in searching firewood and allows for girl children to focus on schooling often neglected due to manual chores.
  • Produces smokeless fire, lessening the occurrence of tuberculosis, impaired vision and breathing problems. 
  • Produces light so work can be done and children can read after dark. 
  • Produces manure slurry which is excellent organic fertilizer. 
  • Aids in managing animal and human organic waste. 
  • Reduces the demand for fossil fuel.

Clinton School Student Does Service Project with Heifer Uganda

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Shamim Okolloh is a graduate student at the Clinton School of Public Service. She is doing her service project with Heifer Uganda, collaborating with the Mbale Secondary School in eastern Uganda to develop a curriculum that incorporates sustainable agriculture principles.
Recently, Okolloh posted on her own blog what she’s learned from Heifer’s Uganda Domestic Biogas Program.
Okolloh with Heifer project participant and his cow in a zero-grazing, biogas-connected shelter.

Okolloh also has a nice post from when she attended a Pass on the Gift ceremony.
If you’ve missed our previous posts on our work with biogas, do a little reading here.

Transforming a Maasai Community With a New Approach (Part 2)

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by  Christian DeVries
Francis Chepyegon, communication officer with Heifer Kenya, photographs bio-gas units at the Maasai Animal Health and Livestock Marketing Project in the Narok District, Rift Valley Provence, Kenya. Photos by Russ Powell
Heifer has provided training for 11 community animal healthcare workers who live in and around Suswa Centre. These ‘barefoot vets’ service huge areas providing small farmers with essential vaccines and medication. Their impact has been phenomenal. Before this project, farmers were losing 50% of their calves to East Coast Fever; now it is only 5%. More and healthier animals resulted in increased income.

More cattle also create more manure. Ramat can hold as many as 1,000 bulls. As you can imagine, they leave behind a mountain of manure. Together Heifer and Ramat are just finishing construction on a giant bio-gas unit to collect all of this potential energy.

Once the tanks are filled they will capture the methane in a massive balloon that is 8,829 cubic feet.  The staff at Ramat estimates that it will produce enough gas to generate 440kW of electricity at any one time, enough energy for 9,000 families. They also hope to install gas pipes from Ramat to Suswa, so they can sell the gas for cooking and lighting.

Heifer knew that building a bio-gas unit would also help address a very serious local environmental concern — erosion. Almost all of the trees in this area had been cut to create charcoal. This deforestation created erosion and destroyed much of the areas grasslands which the Maasai herders depended on. Ramat is working to restore these areas by limiting grazing and seeding pastures with a drought tolerant grass.

In addition to improving the environment, this project will also raise the standard of living for those who live nearby. 


Check back tomorrow for the third and final part of this series. Read part one here.

Transforming a Maasai Community With a New Approach (Part 1)

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Over the next three days, we will be including a blog series by Christian DeVries who recently visited projects in Africa.  
 Farmers and employees pose with cattle at the holding center on the Maasai Animal Health Marketing Project at Suswa Center in Kenya. Photos by Russ Powell
Livestock has, in recent years, received a lot of bad press regarding the amount of methane that they produce, but methane can be captured and used for a variety of purposes.

In Kenya’s Rift Valley, on the outskirts of Suswa Centre, a small town in the heart of Maasai territory, Heifer International is working with this community of pastoralists to improve the quality of their cattle, reduce their carbon “hoofprint,” and generate power that can be used by a rapidly-growing village.
Maasai farmer and herder John Kishau stands near a holding stall at the Maasai Animal Health and Livestock Marketing Project
The Ramat holding center is an atypical project for Heifer, usually they provide animals to families in a direct effort to alleviate poverty and hunger, but here in Suswa Heifer provided funding for the construction of corrals, barns, and a large bio-gas unit.

Herders were already bringing their cattle to Suswa, because they have the largest livestock market in the area.  Some Maasai will travel 250km with their cattle, coming from Tanzania to sell at Suswa because it is close to Nairobi (just 80km) where the price of beef is high.  Bulls that are brought here from so far away are usually thin and weak.  Farmers could never get top dollar for their animals.  The holding center that Heifer created allows the cattle to regain their strength and weight.  After 3-4 months at Ramat the cattle are fat and rested, and can be sold for a better price.

However, the Ramat project and its impact go far beyond simply providing farmers a place to sell their cattle.

Be sure the visit again tomorrow to read about Heifer participants using bio-gas and water.