In the rugged highlands of North Shoa, Ethiopia, a quiet energy revolution is taking shape around an unlikely resource: cow dung. A new study from the Girar Jarso district, published in Discover Biotechnology, provides some of the most detailed field evidence yet that small-scale household biogas digesters can dramatically cut fuelwood consumption and greenhouse gas emissions in communities where nearly every meal is still cooked over a smoky three-stone fire. The research, led by Tolosa Taye Jima of Madda Walabu University together with colleagues at Salale University, combined a large household survey with direct kitchen measurements to quantify exactly how much wood and carbon a single biogas plant can displace.
The stakes could hardly be higher. Roughly 2.4 billion people worldwide lack access to electricity and depend on biomass for their daily energy needs, and in sub-Saharan Africa as much as 90 to 98 percent of energy comes from fuelwood. Ethiopia is among the most biomass-dependent countries on Earth: traditional fuels supply approximately 92 percent of the energy used for lighting and cooking. More than half of all wood harvested globally is burned as fuel, and about a third of that harvest is unsustainable, driving deforestation, soil degradation and rising greenhouse gas emissions. In Girar Jarso, a mountainous district of about 49,435 hectares located 112 kilometers from Addis Ababa, the pressure is visible in degraded natural forests and in the daily scramble of women who compete for dung fuel on grazing lands because firewood has become scarce and expensive.
Biogas technology offers an elegant alternative. Anaerobic digesters ferment animal, human or municipal organic waste in an oxygen-free environment, producing a combustible gas that is typically 60 to 70 percent methane and 30 to 40 percent carbon dioxide, with small amounts of hydrogen, nitrogen and hydrogen sulfide. The methane can be burned directly for cooking and lighting, while the leftover slurry serves as fertilizer. The concept is not new; the first biogas system, used for street lighting, was installed in Exeter, England, in 1895. Ethiopia’s national biogas program introduced the technology roughly four decades ago, and organizations such as the African Biogas Partnership Program and the Netherlands Development Organization have since promoted it across Uganda, Kenya, Rwanda and Ethiopia. Yet adoption across Africa remains patchy, hampered by high upfront costs, maintenance challenges and uneven policy support.
To measure what biogas actually delivers in this specific context, the researchers surveyed 345 households in three purposefully selected kebeles: Goticho Safane, Wertu and Torban Ashe. The sample included 50 biogas adopters and 295 non-adopters, drawn using Yamane’s formula from a population of 2,493 households, and was supplemented by 15 key informant interviews, 6 focus group discussions and field observations. The centerpiece of the study was the Kitchen Performance Test, a standardized method for weighing the fuel a household actually consumes. Thirty-six households, half of them adopters and half non-adopters, had their daily fuelwood use weighed over periods of three to seven days, with consumption normalized by the number of adult equivalents each household served.
The numbers are striking. Households cooking with biogas consumed an average of 1.04 kilograms of fuelwood per capita per day, compared with 2.46 kilograms for households using traditional open three-stone fires. At the household level, adopters burned 4.6 kilograms of wood daily against 7.7 kilograms for non-adopters, while per capita consumption was 0.93 kilograms versus 1.53 kilograms. Scaled across a year, the researchers calculated that each biogas plant saves 1,131.5 kilograms of fuelwood annually, a statistically significant difference. That figure is lower than savings reported in southern Ethiopia, where earlier work recorded daily consumption of 4.95 and 8.34 kilograms for adopters and non-adopters respectively, and well below the 2,534.4 kilograms of annual savings documented in northern Ethiopia, differences the authors attribute to regional practices, biomass availability and household energy needs.
The carbon accounting is equally consequential. Using the saved fuelwood as a starting point, the team applied a standard emission reduction formula that incorporates the net calorific value of wet fuelwood, set at 15 megajoules per kilogram, a fuelwood emission factor of 112 tons of carbon dioxide per terajoule, and the fraction of non-renewable biomass, estimated at 88 percent because wood in the district is harvested faster than forests can regenerate. The result: each biogas plant avoids approximately 1.6 tons of carbon dioxide equivalent per year. That is modest compared with some earlier estimates, including one study that credited biogas plants with around 4 tons of annual reductions, but it reflects the realities of small digesters, wet wood and local cooking habits. There are health dividends as well: traditional firewood stoves can emit 20 to 30 grams of particulate matter per kilogram of wood burned, while biogas stoves emit less than one gram per kilogram of fuel, promising cleaner indoor air and better respiratory outcomes.
Who adopts biogas, and why? A binary logistic regression identified five significant predictors among seven tested variables. The strongest was livestock ownership: households with more cattle were significantly more likely to install digesters, because manure is the primary feedstock and cattle-rich families have a ready supply. Household size also mattered positively, since larger families generate both the labor needed for daily digester operation and the organic waste to feed it. Annual income showed a strong positive correlation, confirming that high investment costs remain the dominant barrier for poorer families, a pattern consistent with studies from Kenya and elsewhere in Ethiopia. Access to adequate water emerged as another decisive factor, because anaerobic digestion requires a consistent water supply to mix with feedstock. Notably, the age and gender of the household head showed no significant effect, suggesting that female-headed and male-headed households are equally capable adopters when resources allow.
The study also sheds light on the fuelwood economy of the district itself. The most commonly used species is Eucalyptus globulus, known locally as Bahrzaf, favored by 69.5 percent of respondents because it grows quickly, burns fast and produces relatively little smoke. Its dominance reflects a landscape in which natural forests are partially disturbed and heavily degraded, indigenous trees survive mainly near church compounds, and plantations of fast-growing eucalypts fill the gap. In an area where 52 percent of the land is highland and terrain ranges from moderate slopes to deep gorges, hauling firewood is labor-intensive, and scarcity pushes the poorest households toward burning dung that would otherwise fertilize fields, a cascade of consequences that biogas adoption can interrupt.
The authors are careful about the limits of their findings. The study covers a single district, which may not represent all of North Shoa or Ethiopia, and while the sample was statistically robust, larger observations would strengthen generalizations. Still, the implications for policy are clear. Financial support mechanisms and educational programs could extend biogas adoption to less advantaged households, and ensuring reliable water access is essential for digester operation. Further research, the team suggests, should explore the welfare effects of adoption across different regions. With Ethiopia’s forests under relentless pressure and global climate targets demanding rapid emission cuts, the message from Girar Jarso is that a digester fed with manure in a highland farmhouse is not just a cooking convenience. It is a measurable intervention, saving more than a ton of wood and 1.6 tons of carbon dioxide equivalent per plant every year, that links household kitchens to the fate of forests and the climate.
Subject of Research: Adoption of household biogas technology and its fuelwood-saving and carbon emission reduction potential in rural Ethiopia
Article Title: Biogas technology adoption and its potential for fuelwood saving and carbon emission reduction in North Shoa, Ethiopia
Article References: Jima, T. T., Deressa, M. T., & Chemeda, B. A. (2025). Biogas technology adoption and its potential for fuelwood saving and carbon emission reduction in North Shoa, Ethiopia. Discover Biotechnology, 2(1), Article 22. https://doi.org/10.1007/s44340-025-00020-3
Image Credits: AI Generated
DOI: 10.1007/s44340-025-00020-3
Keywords: biogas, Ethiopia, fuelwood, carbon emissions, renewable energy, anaerobic digestion, deforestation, clean cooking, kitchen performance test, rural households, climate mitigation, North Shoa
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Sloane Callahan. (September 26, 2026). Household Biogas Plants Slash Fuelwood Use and Carbon Emissions in Rural Ethiopia. Scienmag. https://scienmag.com/household-biogas-plants-slash-fuelwood-use-and-carbon-emissions-in-rural-ethiopia/
Sloane Callahan. “Household Biogas Plants Slash Fuelwood Use and Carbon Emissions in Rural Ethiopia.” Scienmag, 26 September 2026, https://scienmag.com/household-biogas-plants-slash-fuelwood-use-and-carbon-emissions-in-rural-ethiopia/. Accessed 26 September 2026.
Sloane Callahan. “Household Biogas Plants Slash Fuelwood Use and Carbon Emissions in Rural Ethiopia.” Scienmag. September 26, 2026. https://scienmag.com/household-biogas-plants-slash-fuelwood-use-and-carbon-emissions-in-rural-ethiopia/
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Tags: anaerobic digestionbiogasbiomass dependency in sub-Saharan Africacarbon emissionscarbon footprint reductionclean cookingClimate Mitigationdeforestationdeforestation preventionenvironmental impact of biogasEthiopiafuelwoodfuelwood reductiongreenhouse gas emission reductionhousehold biogas plantskitchen performance testNorth ShoaRenewable Energyrenewable energy in Ethiopiarural Ethiopia energy solutionsrural household energy transitionrural householdssmall-scale biogas digesterssustainable cooking practices
