Once upon a time, people used cow dung for farming purposes. Then came the sudden onslaught of using petrol and its by products, and not to forget many chemical fertilizers that managed to hike up the prices of farm products due to the fact these products are expensive farmers had to increase the prices of their produce.
Recently in an article in Dawn, where they quote Thomson Reuters story, a farmer named Mujahid Abbasi told his story of powering his irrigation pump with biogas instead of diesel, which ultimately brought him wealth and economic gains.
The 43 year old farmer, residing about 42 kilometers away from Islamabad benefited from a pilot project of the government of Punjab to provide equipment that runs on biogas. Now the farmer uses 30 buffalo to use 40 cubic meter of biogas everyday that is used for his irrigation pump and his kitchen stove.
The usage of biogas has caused him to save Rs 1000-1200 everyday for the past 13 months since he has stopped using biogas. Another vegetable farmer using the leftovers from the biogas as fertilizers saved himself approximately 88k per year!
“The organic fertiliser from the biogas plant is an economic blessing for me,” he told the Thomson Reuters Foundation.
These two farmers are just an example of the 17,000 beneficiaries of the $67 million project aiming to convert diesel run irrigation pumps in to biogas ones.
This initiative according to the Punjab Agricultural Minister Farrukh Javed, aims to reduce dependence on diesel and increase farm productivity. The government is covering about 50% of the cost for the conversions which range between Rs 200K to 400K.
The program is expected to avoid the usage of 288m liters of diesel and cut down on the diesel import bill while reducing environmental pollution at the same time.
Arif Allauddin, former head of Pakistan’s Alternative Energy Development Board speaking regarding the initiative said:
“The government should encourage the private sector to join its efforts to capitalise on the untapped opportunity the biogas sector offers in view of the millions of tonnes of unused dung from 180 million head of cattle across the country“.
On a closing note, do watch Martian!
