Development Potential of Biogas Technology in Kalinga: An Assessment

The study by Dr. Herbert Imatong was conducted to identify the factors influencing the development potential of biogas technology in Kalinga. It focused mainly on the following concerns; description of the socio-economic profile of the respondents in terms of social attributes, economic attributes, cultural attributes; description of the factors influencing the utilization of biogas technology such as psychological factors, farm-related factors, techno-related factors; test if there a significant difference among respondents in the cost of fuel consumption in cooking before and after utilizing biogas; and determine the problems associated in the adoption and management of biogas technology in Kalinga

There were 15 respondents from Tabuk and Rizal who served as sources of data. Total population was used since they were very few. A prepared questionnaire in English was used but translated in “ilocano” during the actual interview.

Descriptive statistics such as frequency counts, percentage, weighted mean and t-test were used to analyze the data obtained.

Findings showed that the mean age of the respondents was 58 years old. They all have finished elementary education but 40 % of the respondents had reached college level. All the biogas owners in the study were all married upon the establishment of the biogas but two of them were widowed that time of survey. Their average number of children was six but the average size of their dependents was five. Permanent dwelling houses were dominant among the respondents.

Two-thirds of the respondents were Anglican while one-third was catholic. Majority of the respondents were Igorots, have a nuclear-type household, were members of cooperative movement, and all of them were “Ilocano speaking”.

The average annual income of the respondents was Php 119,750 with rice farming as the dominant source of income and pig keeping as the supplemental source of livelihood.

The average population of pigs per class owned by the respondents at the time of survey was 4 sows, five growers, and 14 weanlings. There were only five respondents who used commercially available organic fertilizer and only two of them were aware that biogas sludge was good source of organic fertilizer.

The findings revealed that the main motivating factor of using biogas was to reduce the cost of cooking fuel which was statistically proven using t-test as highly significant. They also mentioned that they were interested to reduce pollution emitted by the animals through their feces.

The study exposed that more than 50% of the respondents learned biogas from friends; only one was benefited of government subsidy n putting up his digester; and only two of the respondents have knowledge in biogas operation and maintenance.

Almost all of the biogas digester was plastic (TPED) and was fed continuously. Respondents revealed that almost all were satisfied with the performance of their digester. However, some stated that there were problems encountered in their biogas operation such as no gas coming out, plastic bag becomes brittle, and hardened (scum) surface inside the plastic digester.