Adoption and fuel use efficiency of mirt stove in Dilla district, southern Ethiopia

Abstract

Half of the world's population relies on biomass fuels for cooking and heating, which contributes to global forest depletion that leads to environmental and human health impacts. Although biomass consumption is unavoidable, using Mirt stoves save biomass fuel consumption and time for cooking. Currently, improved cooking stoves (ICS) are disseminating worldwide including sub-Saharan countries. However, studies on factors that influence the adoptions and fuel-saving performance of ICS were limited. This study was carried out to assess factors that determine the adoption and fuel use efficiency of Mirt stoves in Dilla district, Southern Ethiopia. Data were collected using questionnaires from 384 households. To test fuel use efficiencies a triplicate controlled cooking test (CCT) was made. The data gathered from questionnaires and CCT were analyzed using binary logistic regression and t -test statistical tools, respectively. The regression results revealed that marital status, household income and availability of stoves were significantly ( P < 0.05) affecting the adoption of Mirt stoves. Distance, culture, and fixed nature of the stoves showed negative significant effect ( P < 0.01) on adoption. The CCT result showed Mirt stoves save 31% fuelwood consumption over traditional open fire stoves. However, the statistical t - test showed insignificant ( P > 0.05) difference in the length of time to bake a given amount of Injera and the amount of charcoal extracted. Our result suggested that improve cooking stoves like Mirt stove could ease the burden fuelwood collection of rural households and the efforts made to improve the adoption of Mirt stove could be successful when ICS dissemination programs consider socio-economic and market-related factors into account.