The impact of biogas technology adoption for farm households – Empirical evidence from mixed crop and livestock farming systems in Indonesia

Abstract

This paper aims to study the impact of biogas technology adoption as a livestock waste technology to support Mixed Crop and Livestock (MCL) farming among smallholder farmers in Indonesia. A cross sectional survey was conducted to collect data from 351 farm households (171 biogas adopters and 180 non-adopters) in the province of Yogyakarta. This study employed treatment effects analysis based on propensity score matching techniques to evaluate the impacts of biogas technology adoption among the farm households. The results showed that the adoption of the biogas technology reduces firewood consumption of smallholder farm households in Indonesia. Unfortunately, the impact on the use of slurry for organic fertilizers and the use of gas (Liquid Petroleum Gas, LPG) as another household cooking energy could not be evaluated. This study empirically showed that the benefits of the biogas technology had not yet been optimized at the household level which may partly explain the slow rate of biogas technology diffusion among farmers. However, the consumption reduction of firewood as a benefit of using biogas contributed to behavioral changes of the women in the households especially with respect to firewood collection and cooking activities.