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Fuel Biomass Produced
There are three main categories of fuel produced on-farm: wood, crop residues, and animal dung. Each of these can be quantified at the plot or farm-level. Crop residues and animal dung should only be measured as fuel biomass if they are actually used for fuel in that location or can be used as an estimate of potential sources of fuel.
How to operationalize the metric
Method of data collection and data needed to compute the method:
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Unit of analysis:
The amount of fuel from crop residue production can be estimated by taking the dry weight of residues produced (see Productivity Domain – Crop Residue Productivity Indicator) and multiplying it by the amount of energy stored per kg. Look-up tables of kilojoules per kg for common woods, crop residues, and animal manure can be used for this purpose.
Wood can be measured by volume (m3) or by weight (kg). The weight of the wood is more useful because the energy stored in a unit of volume depends on the density of the wood.
Limitations regarding estimating and interpreting:
Rural households may not be able to reliably estimate the amounts of fuel they produce because “harvest” is on-going. It may be necessary to ask them to measure amounts for a week or to observe their collection of fuel to obtain a more precise measure.
It is also important to control for fuel quality (i.e., the energy value) when quantifying the amount produced and making comparisons.