Innovator’s portable bio-gas unit boon for farmers

What you need to know:

  • Kentainers Ltd’s portable biogas plant, BlueFlame BioSurriGaz, helps farmers increase production and improve their lives. Farmers’ organisations are buying the unit which produces slurry for fertiliser and gas for cooking.
  • A unit costs Sh95,000. Kentainers sells and installs the unit for farmers.
  • It provides a two-burner biogas stove too.

After 50 years of working in the corporate world — both as a lawyer and owner of AquaSanTec Group, the holding company for Kentainers Ltd (manufacturers of Kentank) — Chandu Shah has decided to focus on helping small-holder farmers improve their livelihoods.

For the last four years the Kentainers Ltd chairman has travelled across continents, meeting experts as well as researching and printing information on sustainable agriculture. The knowledge and exposure received has seen the businessman manufacture a portable biogas plant, BlueFlame BioSurriGaz, to help farmers increase production and improve their lives.

The 3.2 cubic metre digester and three cubic metre gas holder is noticeable among hundreds of large tanks at their Embakasi, Nairobi, factory.

Uptake of the portable biogas unit is picking up, with more farmers’ organisations buying it. Kenya National Domestic Biogas Programme (KENDBIP) and Kenya National Farmers’ Federation (KENAFF) are some of the institutions drumming up support for the unit.

New Kenya Co-operative Creameries (New KCC) has already committed to making the unit available to its 6,000 dairy farmers.

“Our concept does not call for any resources from the central or county government (unless they want to assist) and a smallholder with a cow or two is encouraged to rely on their own resources,’’ said Mr Shah.

Transform lives

His BlueFlame Gaz crusade is aimed at helping farmers use what they have to better their yields without spending more on farm inputs and labour. To him, a biogas plant and other basic needs like water are enough to transform poor farmers’ lives.

Mr Shah said that he is out to offer farmers a new lease of life and transform them economically through adoption of the Sustainable System of Crop Intensification (SSCI) practice.  The system embraces use of slurry (a by-product in the production of biogas) as fertiliser.

“Farmers don’t have to buy more fertiliser to get more yields. They can use what they have sustainably to get more. For instance, they can adopt the System of Rice Intensification (SRI) or SSCI to lower the cost of inputs and labour,” he said.

SSCI advocates use of slurry in farming, adequate spacing of seeds, growing fodder using hydroponics, wise use of fertiliser and good use of water. These are simple things that have increased yields by over 30 per cent in India, Cuba and Ethiopia among other places.

Unlike cow dung, slurry has a high composition of phosphorous, potassium and nitrogen, vital soil nutrients. This is where the BlueFlame brand comes in. Farmers get to have clean energy for cooking and also use the slurry to boost production of crops and fodder for cows. The gas and the bio slurry are made by mixing cow dung with water and pouring it inside the unit.

“A mixture of cow dung and water is fed into the BlueFlame twice a day to produce slurry, a nutrient-rich organic fertiliser. The biogas is enough for most household needs saving them costs of charcoal, firewood, kerosene and time. Farmers can also apply slurry on their crops for amazingly high yields and superior quality of produce,” he said.

Alfred Kilonzo and Charles Mbuvi, farmhands at a farm in Kimangu, Machakos County, attest to the usefulness of the BlueFlame unit. The two were fond of using firewood to boil water used in cleaning milking utensils. But this has since changed. A mixture of a 20 litre bucket of cow dung and 20 litres of water is enough to serve their daily cooking energy needs.

Installs units

Aside from that, Mr Mbuvi, says the biogas unit has helped them increase yields at the once barren land. It all started with a shrivelled mango tree at the edge of the farm. “I just dug a hole around the tree and poured slurry and mixed it with soil. To my amazement the tree was back to life in just three weeks,” said Mr Mbuvi.

Excited, he went on to dig a large composite pit where he keeps excess slurry. “We pour it here (the pit) and later use it in the farm,” he says.

They collect more than 40 litres of the fertiliser each day. He applied the organic fertiliser on maize during the last planting season and was not disappoint. But his happiness lies more in increased mango yields. The Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) recently published information on slurry in which they referred to it as brown gold.

“Millions of smallholders all over the world are adopting the use of slurry and other practices of SSCI on a wide variety of crops and fodder. We must enable our farmers to produce more with less from the same land and labour.  Such rapid adoption will be a key driver of more equitable and balanced rural development,” said Mr George Nyamu, the KENDBIP project co-ordinator.

The portable biogas unit costs Sh95,000. The package includes a BlueFlame unit, loan to buy the product, milk purchase by New KCC and an IT platform. Kentainers sells and installs the unit for farmers. The firm additional provides a two-burner biogas stove.

As Mr Shah leaves the work of selling the units to his team as he continues to research on sustainable farming, innovative farmer-friendly products, sourcing for cheap credit for farmers, and pushing the government to zero rate equipment used in biogas units. Last year, his plea to the Treasury went unanswered but he remains undeterred.