Mogens Lund
Special Adviser
Abstract
The aim of this paper was to determine the factors influencing biogas adoption as a livestock waste management among smallholder farmers in Indonesia. The study emphasized the positive influence of farmer engagement on the technology transfer process. A cross-sectional survey was conducted in Yogyakarta Province, Indonesia by involving 351 respondents who were smallholder practicing the Mixed Crops and Livestock (MCL) farming from 2013 to 2014. The results of Logit regression showed that the biogas technology adoption in Indonesia was influenced by attainment of formal education, women involvement in decision making, number of cattle in the household, household’s income, availability of biogas instalment funding, and the degree of connectedness to stakeholders in the agricultural technology transfer system. The study concluded that the availability of biogas installation funding and better engagement to the technology transfer stakeholders positively influenced the biogas technology adoption among MCL farmers.
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.
Abstract
We propose a theoretical framework for the relationship between animal welfare and the economic performance of livestock farms. We empirically analyse this relationship based on a unique dataset of randomly sampled Danish pig herds that includes information from unannounced inspections of the compliance with the animal welfare legislation. We find large variations in economic performance and animal welfare. The relationship between these two indicators is rather weak, but tends to be slightly positive. A possible explanation for our results is that management has a major influence on both economic performance and animal welfare so that good farm managers are able to meet all animal welfare regulations, while achieving a high economic performance.