Rural Biogas Development- One Digester with Three Facilities (China)

A campaign of “One digester with three facilities”, launched by the government and promoted by demonstration, is going on Jingyuan County of Gansu Province. This campaign is aimed at improving biogas digester and three facilities used in the kitchen, animal house and toilet.

The demonstration project is located in Jingyuan County of Gansu Province. Historically, Jingyuan is a naturally harsh region, where shortage of "three materials” (materials for fuel, fodder and building) are felt. Furthermore, ecological degradation has led to poverty of the rural community. In the 1970s the government encouraged people to use biogas digesters, and in the 1980s the government called people to use firewood saving stoves and solar cookers, which to a certain extent alleviated the rural shortage of fuel material. However, due to financial and technical constraints the biogas application had a very limited progress.
In May 1979 the National Biogas Application Conference was convened. After this conference a Biogas Office was set up in Jingyuan County dealing with the promotion of the biogas technology. During the period of the Five-year Plan the entire Gansu Province implemented a pilot village program entitled “Ecological Homestead and Enriching People”, sponsored by the Ministry of Agriculture, in addition to the National Programme of Conversion of Farmland to Forest and of the Program of Poverty Reduction. Some farmers spontaneously made investment to build biogas digesters. Since 2003 the government has launched a series of programs, including a program of rural biogas digesters (financed by treasure bonds) and large/medium-sized biogas engineering program (financed by Ministry of Agriculture). Powered by these programs, more households were using biogas, and the scope of use was expanded to cover integrated uses in addition to lighting, cooking and boiling etc. In 2003, Jingyuan county had 121 certified biogas workers, and over 2100 sets of biogas digesters, including 1200 sets with advanced technology (lateral hydraulic automatic rotational-flowed digester). Four pilot villages were arranged. At present total of 6000 households are using biogas in the county.
The extension of biogas digesters is made mainly through project demonstration under the leadership of the county energy office. The extension approaches are: training, village meetings, on-the-spot explanations, handouts distribution. Trainees are the rural biogas technicians, administration staff as well as the farmers. Generally speaking, the village meeting is convened firstly for farmers to discuss and decide who should be financed by the project for biogas digester construction. In course of the publicity and construction, the county energy office staffs are responsible for answering the inquiries. The project or government will supply the building materials while farmers are responsible for transportation and labor input. The households which use 'one digester with three facilities' have an advanced digester with features of simple structure, reasonable layout and convenient operation. It also features more automatic operation, high gas production, easy cleaning and environment friendly.