BY KPC Reporter
For many years, Richard Ombati’s household relied only on firewood to cook their meals.
Born 66 years ago, the smallholder farmer in Bobaracho area of Kisii County had to incur other expenses for farm inputs.
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This included the purchase of hybrid seeds, planting and topdressing fertilizers to improve productivity in his farm.
“Sometimes I had to purchase firewood or charcoal and this strained my earnings,” Ombati recalls.
He planted the fast-growing Eucalyptus tree species, locally known as emeringamu, on his farm as a replenishing source of firewood and timber.
Relying on firewood was never a solution of the challenges the family faced but a gateway for more.
Ombati had to periodically replace the iron sheet on his kitchen’s roof due to the corrosive soot generated by the firewood or charcoal.
Also, Ombati had to, from time to time; incur extra charges on medicine to treat respiratory diseases caused by the firewood smoke.
“Sometimes, I have to spend over Sh1,000 to purchase cooking gas nearly on a monthly basis from a nearby vendor,” he says, adding that the endeavor was very expensive in the long run.
Cooking gas, he says, is very expensive and the cylinder often stays for months in the house without being re-filled after it runs dry.
Ombati now regrets having found a solution to his problems rather too late.
With just two cows in his homestead, he now has all the foregoing problems resolved.
The cows produce dung that he drains into a bio digester to produce biogas. Biogas is clean cooking gas that also produces bio fertilizer as a byproduct.
“The bio digester was installed in my home in 2023 and it has helped me to cut down on costs. I used to buy gas, firewood, and fertilizer which I no longer do,” said Ombati.
He went on: “I want to encourage many farmers to embrace biogas usage as it is clean, hence environmentally friendly.”
He recently discovered that the Eucalyptus trees that he planted as a source of timber and firewood were sucking the ground dry.
This led to acute water shortage in his homestead as it affected his well and nearby stream especially during dry spells and he had to incur extra costs to buy the commodity from vendors.
Kisii County’s Agriculture, Livestock, Fisheries, and Cooperatives Executive Elijah Obwori hails the green gas initiative that has since been embraced by Ombati.
“This is a smart fight against climate change. It’s improving crop productivity and livelihoods,” Ombwori says.
The initiative is currently spearheaded by the regional government and Siatema Bio, an international biotechnology company that recently set up a base Kisii.
“Already, we have 300 people composed of farmer groups in the program. Siatema is in Kisii to assist our farmers to come up with green energy and fertilizer for crops,” said Obwori.
Installing the bio digester at home costs over Sh50, 000 but the county administration has initiated cost sharing formulas, with the farmers’ main contribution being owning cattle that can offer the raw material.
“The farmer provides raw materials. We provide the rest. It is cost-shared,” said Kisii County’s Agricultural Sector Support Programme II Coordinator Michael Makori.
The program is meant to directly impact the lives of women who usually put up with smoky kitchens to prepare food; in a community.
A biogas system has been installed at the Agricultural Training Center (ATC) in Kisii to act as a model for the training of farmers.
“The bio digester helps farmers to improve the energy situation at home and reduce damage to the environment as no more trees are cut to be used as firewood or charcoal,” said Adams Amenya, Siatema’s Head of Sales in East Africa.
“Farmers are using clean energy and have been able to improve crop production through the application of bio fertilizer.”
The key objective of the company, Amenya said, is to help “farmers convert waste into energy”.
Apart from cow dung, he explained that pig dung or poultry dung can also be used to generate energy.
Eight farmers in the area have been fully supported to install bio digesters in their homes.
Siatema has existed in Kenya since 2017 and helped some 13,000 Kenyans to install bio digesters which are fully operational, explained Amenya.
“Our technology works and we have impacted so many lives around the world. All the 13,000 farmers in Kenya are happy,” he said.
