The goal of Malawi Dairy Biogas is to distribute 10’000 biogas digesters to dairy farmers across the country. This empowers farmers to turn cow manure into valuable biogas. The digesters are delivered together with a biogas stove and a fertilizer management system. Synergetic effects can thus be used in their best possible way to reduce GHG emissions.

The emission reductions from the mitigation activity can be divided into two categories. Approximately 60% stem from the reduction of methane emissions. Most dairy cows are kept in barns and small yards, where they can have access to water, feed, and shade. To ensure hygienic conditions for milk production, the manure is daily scraped and collected in pits or lagoons. As the manure decomposes, it generates methane (CH4), a greenhouse gas around 28 times more harmful to the climate than carbon dioxide (CO2). Because the methane is captured in the biogas digester and destroyed completely through combustion in the stove, the activity prevents these methane emissions from being released into the atmosphere. The remaining 40% of the emission reductions are related to the clean cooking component of the activity. Most households in Malawi rely on firewood or charcoal for cooking purposes, leading to higher deforestation rates. Replacing unsustainable wood fuels with biogas produced in the digesters reduces the burning of biomass, which directly corresponds to a decrease in greenhouse gas emissions.

The mitigation activity has several benefits to the farmers. It allows farmers to store the manure in a central, isolated location, reducing soil and water contamination. By using clean biogas, the households reduce their reliance on biomass for cooking purposes, which means that women responsible for procuring cooking fuels will spend less time and/or money. In addition, it eliminates the exposure to smoke and toxic fumes.

While easy to install and use, the high-efficiency biodigesters become a permanent part of the farm. The bio-fertilizer increases farmers’ yields, leading to a higher income.

The mitigation activity is additional to Malawi’s unconditional NDC measures. Financial support, technology supply and know-how transfer make this programme a valuable climate protection measure for most households in rural parts of Malawi.