The Toledo Bioenergy Center, in southern Brazil, is under construction, but its biodigesters are already operating with manure and the carcasses of disease-free dead animals from 16 pig farms. The goal is to generate one megawatt of power and for pig farmers to participate in the production of biogas without having to invest in their own plants, so their waste is biodigested and turned into fertilizer, instead of polluting rivers and the soil. CREDIT: Mario Osava/IPS

By Mario Osava
TOLEDO, Brazil , May 8 2023 (IPS)

It is the “best energy,” according to its producers, but biogas from livestock waste still lacks an organized market that would allow it to take off and realize its potential in Brazil, the world’s largest meat exporter.

“There is a lack of steady consumers,” said Cícero Bley Junior, who has been a pioneer in the promotion of biogas in the west of the southern state of Paraná, since he served as superintendent of Renewable Energies at Itaipu Binacional (2004-2016).

Itaipu, a gigantic hydroelectric plant shared by Brazil and Paraguay on the Paraná River which forms part of the border between the two countries, encourages nearby pig farmers to take advantage of manure to produce biogas, avoiding its disposal in the rivers that flow into the reservoir, whose contamination affects electricity generation in the long run.“The animal protein chain must also see itself as a generator of energy, just as the sugarcane sector defines itself as a sugar and energy industry since it began producing ethanol (a biogas) almost 50 years ago.” -- Cícero Bley

The companies that form part of the animal protein chain, in general the meat industry that purchases animals ready for slaughter and offers breeding sows and technical assistance to livestock producers, should also buy biogas and its biomethane derivative from the breeders, Bley said.

“The animal protein chain must also see itself as a generator of energy, just as the sugarcane sector defines itself as a sugar and energy industry since it began producing ethanol (a biogas) almost 50 years ago,” he told IPS.

But the companies do not do so: none of them are affiliated with the Brazilian Biogas Association (Abiogás), he lamented. The dairy industry could greatly reduce the cost of picking up milk from farms if it replaced diesel with biomethane in its trucks, he said, to illustrate.

If no such decision is taken, there will be no large investments in gas-fired engines either, which can use natural gas or biomethane, also called renewable natural gas.

In addition to the environmental benefits, such as the reduction in water pollution and the decarbonization of energy, biogas offers economic advantages by making use of manure that was previously considered waste and converting it into biofertilizer.

It also drives a new equipment industry and local development by decentralizing energy and fertilizer production.

“It’s the best energy, for sure,” said Anelio Thomazzoni, a pig farmer from Vargeão, a small municipality of 3,500 inhabitants in the west of the state of Santa Catarina in southern Brazil. His farm has a 600-kilowatt biogas power plant and a 1-megawatt solar power plant.

“The correct use of crop waste, as fertilizer after biodigestion, made it possible for me to reduce by 100 percent the purchase of potassium chloride and phosphorus,” formerly essential fertilizers, he told IPS by phone from his town.

A visitor in Toledo examines the external controls of the mixer, an essential piece of equipment in the production of biogas and whose absence or mishandling can affect the operation. The complexity of biodigestion, compared to photovoltaic solar energy, is a factor that is slowing down the expected progress of biogas in Brazil, despite its multiple benefits in energy, environmental and economic terms. CREDIT: Mario Osava/IPS

Frustrated potential

Brazil today produces only 0.5 percent of the biogas that could result from agricultural, livestock and industrial waste, urban garbage and sewage, estimated Bley, who founded the International Center for Renewable Energies-Biogás (CIBiogás) in 2013.

Brazil would have the potential to replace 70 percent of the diesel it consumes if it allocated all the biogas to the production of biomethane, according to Abiogás. In terms of electricity, it could reach almost 40 percent, but today it is limited to 353 megawatts – around 0.0018 percent of the total – according to the government’s National Electric Power Agency.

In global terms, Brazil is only ninth in biogas electricity generation, accounting for 2.1 percent of the global total, according to the International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA).

The sugarcane sector joined the effort five years ago in promoting biogas, with larger plants for power generation or biomethane refining in the southern state of São Paulo. New initiatives are attempting to accelerate the development of this energy market in the southern region of Brazil, which concentrates two-thirds of the national production of pork.

Residues from the production of sugar and ethanol from cane represent 48 percent of Brazil’s biogas potential, followed by the animal protein chain, which accounts for 32.2 percent, estimates Abiogás. The rest comes from agricultural waste and sewage.

This large pre-treatment tank uses pig carcasses, an abundant material that is still little employed in the production of biogas, which the Toledo Bioenergy Plant in southern Brazil will process to reach a generation capacity of one megawatt, playing a sanitary role at the same time. CREDIT: Mario Osava/IPS

Innovative initiatives

The Bioenergy Plant under construction by CIBiogás, a nonprofit technology and innovation institution in Toledo, a city of 156,000 people in western Paraná, seeks to “validate a possible business model,” explained Juliana Somer, a construction engineer who is operations manager at the Center.

Pig farmers provide the “substrate” and receive back a part of the “digestate”, as the manure converted into a better fertilizer is called, without the gases that make up the biogas, extracted in the biodigestion process. With that they fertilize their land.

To generate electricity, biogas must have at least 55 percent methane. Carbon dioxide (CO2) is another component, making up about 40 percent. Hydrogen sulfide must be removed to prevent corrosion of the equipment.

“The objectives are environmental, social, energy-related and the dissemination of technologies,” said Rafael Niclevicz, environmental engineer at CIBiogás. To that end, an area of ​​high pig farm density was chosen, with about 120,000 hogs in five square kilometers.

The manure is collected daily, 70 percent by trucks and the pig farmers themselves, and the rest by pipelines from the nearest farms. Currently, 16 pig farmers, whose herds total about 40,000 animals, supply the plant, which also collects carcasses of disease-free dead pigs.

“The model makes sense for pig farmers who do not want to invest in facilities to produce biogas on their own. It solves the problem of waste disposal and there are socio-environmental benefits for everyone,” said Somer.

This Enerdimbo truck is powered by biomethane and is used to collect manure from 40 pig producers that feeds the company’s large biodigesters in southern Brazil. Solar power is added to biogas to provide 2.5 megawatts of energy, enough to supply 5,000 medium-sized households. CREDIT: Mario Osava/IPS

The plant is a joint project between the municipal government, which ceded the land, and Itaipu Binacional, which provided funding. The goal is an installed capacity of one megawatt.

In Ouro Verde, 22 kilometers from Toledo, a similar plant, Enerdinbo, receives the “substrate” from 40 farms within a radius of 15 kilometers, where more than 100,000 pigs are raised, for a total generation capacity of two megawatts, to which are added 500 kilowatts from a solar plant.

It is enough to provide electricity to 5,000 households, estimates EDB Energía do Brasil, the company that offers businesses and residential consumers the possibility of reducing their electricity bills by 10 percent by joining the cooperative that benefits from the electricity generated by Enerdinbo.

The business of EDB, created by businesspeople in Cascavel, 60 kilometers from Ouro Verde, is to implement small renewable energy plants to distribute the benefits of distributed generation among members of the cooperative, with the investment by the consumers themselves to save on energy costs.

Enerdinbo and the Toledo Bioenergy Plant seek to expand biogas by avoiding the difficulty for pig farmers and other small farmers or ranchers to invest in the energy business.

A view of one of the three large biodigesters of Enerdimbo, a plant of the EDB Energía do Brasil company that distributes the benefits of distributed electricity generation to numerous members of the cooperative, whose power bills are thus reduced by 10 percent. CREDIT: Mario Osava/IPS

Demand from animal protein producers

“Small and medium-sized rural producers are true heroes who face various risks when deciding, in isolation, to implement a waste treatment project generated in the animal protein chain for the production of biogas on their properties,” said a manifesto from the producers and bioenergy specialists.

The document, released at the South Brazilian Biogas and Biomethane Forum on Apr. 18 in Foz do Iguaçu, in the far west of Paraná, calls for greater support from the public sector and from companies that link biogas production and the meat industry, for their “strategic value for Brazil’s energy transition.”

Only 333 animal waste biogas plants are suppliers to the national electricity grid, that is, 0.005 percent of Brazil’s 6.5 million livestock farms, the document stressed.

Nomsa Mthethwa, from Jozini in KwaZulu Natal Province, South Africa, has put her children through university from goat keeping. Credit: Busani Bafana/IPS

By Busani Bafana
KWAZULU NATAL PROVINCE, South Africa, Nov 15 2016 (IPS)

Bongekile Ndimande’s family lost more 30 head of cattle to a ravaging drought last season, but a herd of goats survived and is now her bank on four legs.

In money value, the drought deprived Ndimande of more than 21,000 dollars. Each goat would be worth an average of 714 dollars if they had survived in the dry, hot and rocky environment in her village of Ncunjana in the KwaZulu Natal Province, which has been stalked by a drought that swept across Southern Africa.Goats are much better at dealing with drought, vulnerability and a changing environment than cattle. They're also easier for women to herd.

More than 40 million people are in need of food following one of the worst droughts ever in the region, with the Southern African Development Community launching a 2.8-billion-dollar emergency aid appeal.

Smallholder farmers in South Africa’s KwaZulu Natal Province have shifted to goat production to adapt to climate change. Their fortitude could be a success story for African agriculture in need of transformation to produce more food to feed more people but with fewer resources.

Livestock farmers like Ndimande are making good of a bad situation. They need help to cope with worsening extreme weather events which have led to increased food, nutrition and income security in many parts of Africa.

Science, innovation and technology

Adapting agriculture to climate change and climate financing are pressing issues at the seminal 22^nd meeting of the Conference of Parties (COP 22) which opened this week in the Moroccan city of Marrakesh. Morocco – already setting the pace in implementing the global deal to fight climate change through innovative projects – has unveiled the Adaptation of African Agriculture (AAA), a 30-billion-dollar initiative to transform and adapt African agriculture.

The transformation of the agricultural sectors in addressing climate change is essential to tackling hunger and poverty, José Graziano da Silva, director-general of the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) of the United Nations, said in a message in the run-up to the COP 22 following the entry into force of the Paris Agreement on Nov. 4. Agricultural sectors are uniquely positioned to drive sustainable development through climate-smart sustainable agriculture approaches, da Silva emphasised.

Almost all African countries have included agriculture in their climate action plans, known as Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs), highlighting the grave risk that climate change poses both to food security and economic growth on the continent, said Bruce Campbell, director of the CGIAR research programme on Climate Change, Agriculture and Food Security (CCAFS).

Science, innovation and technology will be at the core of adaption in African agriculture, he said.

According to the African Development Bank, 315 to 400 billion dollars will be needed in the next decade to implement the continent’s agricultural transformation agenda.

Harnessing technology is one of many solutions in addressing the impacts of climate change if smallholder farmers are to sustainably produce food, while rearing livestock. The Technical Centre for Agricultural and Rural Cooperation (CTA) – which has launched a regional project to improve farmer’s access to technologies to lift them out of hunger and poverty – has identified diversifying livestock-based livelihoods as one of four proven solutions that cereal and livestock farmers in Southern Africa can adopt to transit to climate-resilient agriculture.

Goat fortunes

Swapping cattle for goats has allowed Ndimande to grow her flock from 30 goats three years ago to 57 goats and 15 kids. Last year, she sold six goats at an average price of 67 dollars each and invested the proceeds in a new three-bedroom tile and brick house.

Ndimande is one of several farmers in KwaZulu Natal Province who, through training in goat management under a collaborative agribusiness and Community Animal Health Worker project, are helping transform livestock farming.

The Mdukatshani Rural Development Project is a 5-million-dollar partnership between the national Department of Rural Development and Land Reform, the KwaZulu Natal Department of Agriculture and Rural Development and Heifer International South Africa to double goat production by developing 7,000 female commercial farmers and creating over 600 jobs for the youth in KwaZulu Natal Province.

In addition, the project seeks to create 270 micro-businesses and generate 7.1 million dollars in revenue within five years.

“Goats have given me food and income because I am able to sell them within a short space of time unlike cattle,” Ndimande told IPS, explaining that better livestock management skills have improved her flock.

Goats are much better at dealing with drought, vulnerability and a changing environment than cattle. They’re also easier for women to herd, said Rauri Alcock, a director of the Mdukatshani Rural Development Project.

“Women are our priority attention because they are in charge in many households and are the vulnerable people we are trying to get to, so goats, women, global warming come together very well,” Alcock told IPS during a tour of agribusiness project organised jointly by CTA and the Southern Africa Confederation of Agriculture Unions (SACAU) for livestock farmers from across Southern Africa.

Alcock explains that Mdukatshani Rural Development Project’s main entry point has been helping farmers avoiding kids’ deaths in their flocks. Despite being productive, the high mortality of kids at weaning lowers productivity for a farmer to be able to start selling their goats.

“Goats are an adaptation strategy as we talk about climate change. We see that male farmers who have had cattle and lost them are now moving towards keeping goats because goats are actually more resilient and better animals for a harsh changing environment,” said Alcock.

Another farmer, Sikhumbuzo Ndawonde (46), a former steel factory worker in Johannesburg until he was retrenched, has supported his family through keeping goats even though he does not eat them.

“I never eat any goat meat but I love keeping them because I get good income from them besides being able to have a goat for traditional ceremonies. They are now my job,” said Ndawonde, who has a flock of 33 goats and sells at least 10 goats each year.

Climate change has winder implications for livestock keepers in Southern Africa but with management, this is a route to sustainable livelihoods, says Sikhalazo Dube, a livestock specialist and the Southern Africa regional Representative for the International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI).

“One of the challenges caused by elevated levels of carbon in the atmosphere is increase in the woody component of the vegetation. Goats as largely browsers are best suited to reduce bush encroachment and in the process benefit nutritionally,” said Dube, adding that in declining feed availability due to drought, keeping goats is ideal.

Small stock can be produced in small areas and require less feed, making them ideal for women and youth who are often landless or not supported to own land to use as an entry point for income generation and Small Medium Scale Enterprises, Dube said.

Women are responsible for providing water for their families. Many spend hours travelling to the wells and back home every day, carrying heavy clay pots on their heads. Credit: Irfan Ahmed/IPS

By Irfan Ahmed
MITHI, Pakistan, Jan 16 2015 (IPS)

The main entrance to the Civil Hospital in Mithi, headquarters of the Tharparkar district in Pakistan’s southern Sindh Province, is blocked by a couple of men clad in traditional dress and turbans. They are trying to console a woman who is sobbing so heavily she has to gasp for breath.

She lost her two-year-old son just moments ago and these men, both relations of hers, were the ones to carry the child into the hospital where doctors tried – and failed – to save him.

The death toll hit 650 at the close of 2014, but continues to rise in the New Year as scant food stocks wither away and cattle belonging to herding communities perish under the blistering sun.

Among the dead are three-week-old Ramesh; four-month-old twin girls named Resham and Razia; and the yet-unnamed sons of a couple who are inconsolable after the passing of their newborn children.

Edited by Kanya D’Almeida