4.5. Location: Arusha region/northern Tanzania

The dissemination situation in the Coffee-Banana Belt of Mt. Meru in Tanzania is contradictory. A number of factors favourable to dissemination meet in this region. The area is marked by a bad development of the infrastructure. There is a need for an improvement in the supply of energy for farms and households. Large numbers of the target group carry out intensive mixed farming and have a relatively high income. Organic fertilising is hardly practised in the region. As the volcanic soils are rich in nutrients, the farmers can only be interested very slowly in organic fertilisation. One point on the programme of the project entails distributing the slurry to neighbouring fodder fields via simple irrigation ditches. In the region there are, in the meantime, approx. 250 well functioning biogas plants over a relatively small area which have made the biogas plant a well-known capital and durable investment. The demand is balanced by a competent supply. The project activities produced a number of well qualified craftsmen and technicians who now build plants independently of the counterpart organisation However, the price of the plant is an obstacle to widespread dissemination. With economic liberalisation, larger consumer and investment alternatives have appeared for the farmers with a higher income and have had a limiting effect on the development of demand. Although the government is interested in biogas technology, the future of the counterpart organisation is still uncertain due to the non-existence of state funds.