Livestock Farmers’ Knowledge, Perceptions, and Attitudes Toward Biogas Plant in Bangladesh

Year 2014, Volume: 4 Issue: 1, 77 - 82, 01.03.2014

Akm Rafiqul Islam Mohammad S Hossein

Abstract

Target group participation in planning is a key factor to set up strategies to disseminate any technology. The present study was conducted to know the knowledge, perceptions and attitudes of livestock farmers’ about biogas plant and compare it with people who are not involved in livestock farming activities. The study was conducted in 25 villages from 3 districts of Bangladesh. Total number of participant was 320, among them farmers with biogas plant were 80, farmers without biogas plant were 80, and non farmers were 160. People making at least 25% of their total income from livestock farming activities was considered as farmer. Farmers’ knowledge and perceptions about energy sources, raw materials of biogas and environmental impact of biogas were judged with dichotomous type of questions, and their attitudes about biogas was judged by a likert chart type question having 1 to 5 scale where 1 is strongly disagree and 5 is strongly agree. All the survey was conducted by visiting the farm and data was collected directly talking with the farm owner or with the respondent. Among the renewable energy, biogas and solar were well known to respondent compared to wind and water sources. All three non-renewable sources like fossil oil, coal, and natural gas were well known to the respondent. Among the five raw materials for biogas production, cow dung was well known as feeding materials to both livestock farmer and non farmers. 100% farmer and 75% non farmer were aware about cow dung. All the respondent with biogas plant has agreed that biogas could effectively control the odor of cow dung and poultry litter, and could provide a smokeless cooking environment. All farmers with biogas plant (100%) strongly agreed that biogas is good for their family and for the country and they will support and encourage others to built biogas plant. In conclusion, Bangladesh has a bright future for biogas technology because it has huge raw materials mainly cow dung and poultry litter and farmers have very positive attitudes towards biogas technology

Keywords

Livestock farmer; Biogas plant; Knowledge; Perception; Attitude

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