In May 2019, EU-funded ElectriFI, invested US$ 2 million in Sistema.bio to support the company’s rapid scale up in Latin America, East Africa, and South Asia.
Sistema.bio creates value from waste. This Mexican-born company has been working hard over the past ten years to make sustainable farming a reality for families all over the world. Their state-of-the-art biodigesters take animal waste and turn it into biogas, a clean & renewable energy, as well as biofertiliser, a liquid organic fertiliser that can be used to enhance crop production.
Their mission is simple: to create a sustainable, equitable world without waste. In fact, to Sistema.bio there is no such thing as waste: there’s only resources. Managing animal waste is a daily reality for farmers, a reality that implies not only work but potential contamination and diseases. With biodigesters, manure that would gather mosquitoes and potentially end up in rivers is now utilised for better things like cooking, fertilising crops and even milking cows!
Sistema.bio has been joining hands with smallholder farmers to address critical matters like world hunger, poverty and climate change.
The Mbugua family: Harvesting value
There is no comparison between biogas and firewood when it comes to health.
Mr Stephen Mbugua, Nyandarua, Kenya
Mr Stephen and Mrs Mary own an 8-acre farm in Nyandarua and a small butchery. They are owners of a Sistema.bio biodigester, which has helped them displace firewood from their kitchen. Their biodigester produces enough biogas for 10 hours of cooking every day. Eliminating firewood for cooking not only helps the family to reduce their daily workload, it also contributes to improve their respiratory health. Indoor pollution caused by firewood smoke is a huge issue for rural populations and a public health challenge that causes more premature deaths than HIV, malaria, and tuberculosis combined.
Due to existing gender roles, women and girls are most affected by indoor pollution, being the ones in charge of cleaning and cooking. In rural settings, they also carry the workload of collecting charcoal and firewood, tasks that can be eliminated through firewood displacement. Biogas has also represented big savings for the 5-person household, cutting down on approximately 37 US$ per month. Moreover, they have also been able to save money replacing chemical fertilisers with the biofertiliser produced by the biodigester. They now produce 400 liters of biofertiliser per day, which is enough to fertilise 14 hectares per year.
Expected impact of Sistema.bio based on EDFI ElectriFI’s investment:
- Number of beneficiaries : 211,000
- GHG avoidance (tCO2eq/y): 265,000