Roger OngAgriculture is under attack today from climate change. The attacks come from multiple fronts, including receding water tables, geographical shifts of weather, environmentally harmful slash-and-burns, not to mention subsequent problems of food accessibility and food loss. At the end of one problem, some farmers face a cycle of poverty, forced into by climate change and market forces affecting their productivity and livelihoods.
su-re.co is a company that understands the intrinsic links between climate change, agriculture and poverty. This company wants to help Indonesian farmers break out of their poverty cycle through environmentally positive actions. The founder of su-re.co, Takeshi Takama, worked on Climate Change Adaptation projects at Stockholm Environment Institute and had subsequently worked across the African Continent. He created su-re.co to implement climate-positive solutions in Indonesia. Takama implements a sustainable business model, and the first step is to inject a new source of energy into the farmers’ processes.
Providing a source of sustainable energy to farmers
We often take energy for granted. However, for farmers, it is a part of everyday lives. Not being able to purchase expensive LPG gas can mean lacking an energy source for daily activities such as cooking.
To counter the lack of gas to burn, farmers collect logs for firewood from the nearby forest. This subsequently exacerbates the climate problem, which affecting their own crops and possibly prolonging their poverty cycle.
su-re.co has developed a biogas kit that is user-friendly for the farmers. The kits produce clean gas and organic compost by fermenting livestock droppings and leftover food from their homes. Although methane gas is produced at first, the devices in the kit capture that methane gas.
This new source of clean energy has several benefits. They include providing 1-2 hours of biogas for cooking and bio-slurry that act as organic fertilizers for their crops. Furthermore, the energy is a clean alternative to LPG or firewood, which would otherwise produce large amounts of greenhouse gases.
The design is important to promote use too, as the specifications of the biogas digester ensure that it is a good fit for Indonesian farmers. For one, the biogas digester is easy to use. Anyone can utilize it. In addition, it is easy to set up, be it the first digester or attaching additional modular reactors to increase capacity.
Another design of the biogas digester is that the parts are easily replaceable. The kit is of course built to be durable, but should any part of the reactor (other than the special bag) need replacement, the parts can be found locally and readily. This allows farmers to replace broken parts and repair the kit by themselves, reducing downtime. It is another credit to the design of the kit.
su-re.co providing a climate change solution
The traditional way farmers used to get their fuel was detrimental to the environment in two ways. Without the proper knowledge, unsustainable fuel sources were sought for, like burning wood from deforestation, consequently emitting carbon dioxide and contributing to global warming.
The other way was how these wood were burnt, releasing gases toxic to the environment and health, including methane, carbon monoxide and black carbon. Black carbon is especially harmful to climate change, and has a warming impact on climate 460-1,500 times stronger than carbon dioxide. Carbon monoxide is particularly bad for health, which then impacts the families’ health and well-being.
It is estimated that three billion people cook over open fires or simple stoves, and the total impact on climate change is significant. If solutions provided by companies like su-re.co can find its first happy first users (in this case, su-re.co’s biogas digesters), then we can gain momentum to reduce environmental impact and improve people’s quality of life.
A sustainable business model of fair trade and education
su-re.co employs a sustainable model to provide agriculture education and income for the farmers in Indonesia.
The initiative begins with encouraging coffee and cacao farmers with the access to knowledge and information of climate change, working together with local organizations such as Indonesia’s Meteorologi Office (BMKG). Not only rice, coffee and cacao are also affected by climate change, By introducing biogas use and the climate field school, the coffee and cacao are then turned into climate-smart products that have more value-added and adhere to fair trade standards to ensure the farmers benefit fairly from the sale of products.
Parts of the profits from the sale of the coffee and cacao products are reinvested into the Climate Field School. This is where farmers receive education on how to practice sustainable agriculture. Part of that education involves understanding how green their farming is, which becomes an additional drive for them to install the biogas digester properly.
Block chain and carbon offsetting
The next step for su-re.co is to build a system that sells CO2 emission credits, measured by the amount of CO2 reduced through the use of their biogas kit. It is a system that promises to involve and motivate farmers further to use su-re.co’s biogas kits.
Tackling Climate Change from small, significant changes
Using the biogas digester breaks not only the poverty cycle farmers may find themselves in but also achieves su-re.co’s initial goal to tackle climate change. Furthermore, beyond a sustainable business model, su-re.co has also involved the farmers in the process through education about the climate. This human element is often less talked about, but is an essential part of the equation. su-re.co has created a practical and well-designed solution, and we can’t wait to see what’s in store next for them.
su-re.co, Green School Bali and Zenbird Media will be co-hosting a talk about “Traditional Knowledge and Technology in facing Climate Change” on 23 September. Join us if you are interested in learning some examples of what Indonesia and Japan are doing to tackle climate change, especially about su-re.co’s biogas digester. You can find more information here.
[Website] su-re.co Homepage
