Costs of Producing Biogas at Dairy Farms in The Netherlands

By 2020, Dutch dairy chains envisage to be self‐sufficient with regard to energy used by dairy farms and dairy processors. This would require dairy farms to produce 25 PJ per year, possibly by a combination of wind, solar and biogas. This paper focuses on biogas. To evaluate the project’s viability we estimated the expected technical and financial performance of 4 types of business models, i.e. “CHP‐farm”, “CHP‐large”, “green gas” and “central upgrading of green gas”. Data stem from among others 23 biogas plants in the Netherlands. Anticipating that CHPmodels and green gas models occur with a likelihood of 40% and 60% respectively, the total number of biogas plants would amount to 232 (1% of dairy farms), including a total of 5 million tons of manure per year (14% of all cattle manure in the Netherlands) and annual government subsidies of Euro 295 million. Aggregated annual profits are expected to be positive, but over the project’s total life time there is an expected deficit of Euro 262. For this to change costs of feedstocks or digestate disposal costs would for instance have to go down. Also fully switching to green gas models dampens the deficit. Results are used in current stakeholders debates on the organization of an “energy neutral dairy chain” in the Netherlands. Further analyses incorporating uncertainty around key technical and economic parameters including financial impacts of CO2‐reductions are underway.green electricity, green gas, empirical data, technical performance, financial performance, Production Economics, Research and Development/Tech Change/Emerging Technologies,

Enabling environment for circular bioeconomy sector in Burkina Faso

Circular bioconomy (CBE) have emerged as effective tools for triggering a sustainable development process consequent to the fear of cascading risks, growing instability in the world market and the recent Coronavirus disease 19 (COVID-19) pandemic. Promoting the development of business models towards CBE can help countries meet the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and the needs of growing population while supporting vulnerable and marginalized groups (Schroder et al., 2018, Rodriguez- Anton et al., 2022). Burkina Faso has a huge opportunity and natural resources to develop CBE. In the country, the agricultural sector employs 63% of the employed workforce and contributes to 16% of the Gross Domestic. National statistics indicate that in 2021 the largest national productions were maize (1,853,509 tons), followed by sorghum (1,643,721 tons); millet (705,344 ton); cowpea (704,539 tons); cotton (696,635 tons, including fiber and seeds) and peanuts (630,525 tons) (INSD – EPA, 2021-2022)

Willingness to pay for excreta pellet fertilizer: Empirical evidence from Ghana

This study examined farmers’ willingness to pay for excreta pellet fertilizer in Ghana. Primary data was obtained from 461 farmers in 10 districts in the Western and Greater Accra regions of Ghana through randomized questionnaire administration. The contingent valuation method was used in eliciting the farmers’ willingness to pay decisions (WTP) and maximum amount they are willing to pay. The Tobit regression model results revealed that being a household head, unit cost of current fertilizer used, and farm size positively influenced the willingness to pay amount whereas previous use of organic fertilizer influenced the willingness to pay amount negatively.</p