............ Heifer International lights villages

 

By Gerald Tenywa

 

NOT everyone hates the smelly cow dung. At Moses Sabika’s residence in Mukono-Kilowooza, the excreta from livestock has turned into raw materials used to produce biogas, which is a source of energy for cooking and lighting.

As darkness engulfs the village, Sabika’s children proudly turn on the lanterns using biogas from cow dung. Their smokeless kitchen nearby has for the last six months been powered by biogas from cow dung.

“It is much easier to cook food than previously,” says 25-year-old Kiyimba Kiyitawagulu.

“The biogas is always available as long as the cattle is fed and is productive. The animals keep on producing dung, which is a wonderful raw material for biogas.”
Kiyitawagulu, Sabika’s son, takes charge when his parents are away. This was the case over the weekend when The New Vision visited the couple’s home with 10 members.

He says their livelihood started changing in 1998 when Heifer International Uganda mobilised a group of villagers. His parents were among the beneficiaries who took up the ‘gospel’ and pioneered the scheme in Mukono-Kilowooza.

“I still remember those days. We never used to take milk because we were not farmers,” says Kiyitawagulu.

“My parents were petty traders working at Kalerwe in Kampala, but it was not easy and it was rare to eat three meals in a day.”

Kiyitawagulu turning on the gas lantern in their house and right,

he places a kettle on to the gas cooker

 

Kiyitawagulu says all this changed after the couple was empowered by Heifer International Uganda through a community- based farmers’ group. His parents gave up the work in Kalerwe and settled on their ancestral land at Kilowooza.

The one-and-half acre piece of land has today turned into a treasure, which they are mining after being armed with “the know how” provided by the development partners. Today the couple owns five cross-bred cattle and wants to multiply their current stock to 20 animals in the coming years. They also rear goats and manage a piggery and poultry unit on the same piece of land.

“By then, we had a house but it was ‘naked’ without plaster to cover the bare bricks,” Kiyitawagulu recalls.

“I no longer get second thoughts when visitors are coming. Most of what a home should be, we have and many people countrywide come to learn from us.”

The bio-digester, which is dome- shaped, comprises a network of bricks built underground and then fed with dung from cows, pigs or poultry.

“This is where decomposition takes place to produce mainly methane gas, which has burning properties,” says Sylvia Nakami, a communications and promotion officer for the Uganda Domestic Biogas Programme. The programme is implemented by Heifer International (Uganda). The gas is then piped to the house where it provides light and heat when connected to a special biogas lamp or cooking stove.

When The New Vision was taken around the house, it was evident that nothing was being left to waste at Sabika’s land holding. Even the by-products or residues arising from the production of biogas are applied on their farmland in order to replenish the soil nutrients needed by the crops.

In addition to the manure, there are trenches dug to control soil erosion and also enhance the ability of the soil to hold water after the rains. They have also planted calliandra and leucaena to add fertility to the soil. The two leguminous plants are also harvested and mixed together with other cattle feeds such as elephant grass.
As a result, bananas, a staple food which had disappeared in most parts of Buganda, are thriving at the sloping farmland.

“We did not have bananas before we started keeping cattle,” says Kiyitawagulu.
“But now we have got plenty of milk and our land is more productive since cow dung also produces manure.”

According Nakami, Sabika is one of the model farmers who have put the environmentally friendly technology on the ground.

“We have created alternatives in order to improve the livelihoods of rural and peri-urban communities,”she says adding: “The biogas initiative will help reduce the number of trees falling down everyday.”

Having started working in Uganda 1982, Heifer International has moved along in empowering farmers to keep livestock and with technical and financial support from SNV and Hivos to harnessing the by-products of cattle.

 

The practice of using biogas technology indicates that cooking beans, which is being shunned by many people because of scarcity of firewood or charcoal, can be reduced from one hour to only 30 minutes. This is a clear indication that this technology is far cheaper than using either electricity or charcoal.

“We have been training masons as part of building capacity among the communities to harness bio-gas,” says Nakami. She adds that this is one of the ways to enhance sustainability and future adoption of this programme in the entire country.

Currently, as a way of enabling rural farmers to address challenges of hunger using sustainable interventions, Heifer International is providing subsidies amounting to about 30% of the total costs of installing biogas to all participating farmers.

Armed with pro-poor interventions, Heifer International is looking at installing up to 12,000 biogas plants in the coming five years. Since the year started, they have established only 200, which are all functional.

“We want to go full-scale and cover the whole country,” says Mr. Beinempaka the programme coordinator.

With reduced time for cooking, improved soil fertility, food production and security and school children reading on brighter and efficient biogas light, Kiyitawagulu says biogas is the way to go.

“It will not only chase darkness, but also reduce poverty in people’s households.”