Waste to Energy: A Pilot on Poultry and Piggery Farms In Uganda by gsempiri

Assuming you can convince farmers to change their practices so you can collect the waste and sufficiently centralize them to achieve minimum sizes of efficient biogas-to-energy conversion, key is economics. The energy and material balance, and the corresponding economic cost-benefit calculation, must be done upfront. Technologies abound, but depending on the size and geographic distribution of farms, whenever there is excess energy or electricity generated that need to be consumed outside the farms or sold to the municipal or central govt electricity companies, political and other issues may need to be handled as well.

This is a great proposal! I will first want to respond to Ridwan D. Rusll: Usually bio-gas made on the farms is not too much to exceed energy requirements of the farm (Also consider that in Uganda most farms are in the vicinity of residential houses and some gas may be used in the home).Uganda has a deficit of electricity (less than 30% coverage) and I see this project as a promising venture.  I would assume farms would have a deficit of energy necessitating the collection of waste from other farms where the project wasn't originally implemented. This is advantageous in that the project covers a broader area and hence having a greater impact on reducing greenhouse emissions. Also note that the larger the farm, the more the waste and the more the energy requirements. In case of excess production, then the gas can be used for residential purposes like cooking and refrigeration or even heated fruit and vegetable driers. Given the enormous food loss in Uganda due to inadequate preservation and processing technologies, I see this project as part of a solution if the gas is used in fruit drying and refrigeration. Reducing food loss not only ensures adequate food (considering the level of malnutrition in Uganda -close to 20%- this project will have an indirect positive effect) but also reducing food loss will mean that less food will be produced which translates into less stress on the environment (less water and fertilizer) given the heated topic on climate change. I am not sure if the refuse from biogas production still contains nutrients for the soil but I know nitrogen is abundantly reduced.

What I like about your proposed idea is that it looks to be a one time investment that grows with the size of the farm and it has economic benefits, health, nutritional, food security benefits - all of which are likely to improve livelihoods.