ABSTRACT
This chapter focuses on miscellaneous organizational approaches that are government intervention in the promotion of biomass energy. Governments and donors have shown a growing interest in promoting the formation of associations of farmers to produce biomass feedstocks for energy or fiber. Other programs have been established, again usually under government auspices, directly aiding smallholders such as small farmers to produce bioenergy. Institutions such as churches, schools, and hospitals play an important if sometimes little recognized role in the development of new energy technologies, including bioenergy, in the Third World. There have been numerous efforts to help individual farmers develop bioenergy resources without resorting to formal organizational structures. Bioenergy options that can be carried out economically as byproducts of an ongoing commercial operation also have the advantage of using built-in entrepreneurial motivation and skills. One of the most prominent uses of new types of bioenergy conversion facilities at the household level is the biogas digester.
