SKG Sangha has radically improved the lives of thousands of rural families in Karnataka, South India by supplying them with both dung based biogas plants for cooking and a specially designed unit that turns the slurry from the biogas plant into high quality fertiliser. The benefits of biogas are well known. It provides rural women with a cheap, reliable source of energy as well as reducing indoor air pollution and easing pressure on forest resources. Less well known is how turning the biogas residue into high quality fertiliser can increase crop yields and, more importantly, give rural women the chance to make a profit. The units supplied by SKG Sangha produce fertiliser simply by combining the slurry with straw and leaves and then adding worms which re-digest the mixture to produce vermicompost. This vermicompost improves the yields of family crops and the liquid output from the unit can be used as an organic pesticide. The growing demand in India for organic fertiliser means that women can earn as much from selling half the vermicompost they produce as the household earns from selling the crops they grow. Since 1993, SKG Sangha has installed over 43,000 biogas plants in the state of Karnataka alone.

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