GHG Emission Profile and Strategy for

Indrokilo on Animal Husbandry Sector

Quantitative Analysis and Recommendations for

the BINTARI Foundation, Government and Community

Prepared by Alexandr Iscenco

for the BINTARI Foundation

Semarang, October 2012

 GHG Emission Profile and Strategy for Indrokilo on Animal Husbandry Sector

ABSTRACT

The animal husbandry sector is a large contributor to greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions,
particularly the emissions of methane and nitrous oxide. This is especially true in case of rural
communities, where farming and livestock management cause the dominant majority of emissions.
It is possible to reduce these GHG emissions through better livestock management, composting of
animal manure or turning it into biogas. Such initiatives are now implemented in a number of
villages in Indonesia, one of them being the Indrokilo village in Ungaran, Central Java. However,
no quantification of GHG emissions and their reduction through these initiatives has been done until
now. So, the rural communities and the Indonesian government supporting climate change
mitigation in the villages did not know how much the animal husbandry sector there contribute to
the climate change issue and how successful are the initiatives implemented in terms of its
mitigation.
The present research tried to fill in this gap of knowledge. It presents the results of estimating
GHG emissions from livestock and manure management in Indrokilo during the period of 2008
2012, suggest strategies on emissions reduction to be realized there, assesses their potential to
decrease emissions of methane and nitrous oxide, proposes the optimal strategy to pursue by the
village community and concludes with recommendation on ensuring sustainability and success of
the climate change mitigation program in the Indrokilo village. The main beneficiaries of the
research are the environmental organization BINTARI Foundation, the governmental structures
involved in the climate change mitigation and adaptation programs and rural communities in
Indonesia.

Keywords:
Animal husbandry, biogas, climate change, compost, greenhouse gas, Indonesia, Indrokilo,
livestock, manure management, methane, nitrous oxide

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CONTENTS

INTRODUCTION .......................................................................................................................... 4

I. DESCRIPTION OF THE STUDY SITE .................................................................................. 4

II. GOALS OF RESEARCH......................................................................................................... 5

III. METHODOLOGY ............................................................................................................... 6

IV. STRATEGIES...................................................................................................................... 8

V. RESULTS AND CONCLUSIONS ............................................................................................. 8

V.1. Situation during 2008 2012. .............................................................................................. 8

V.2. Emission Scenarios and Strategies until 2020. .................................................................... 11

VI. RECOMMENDATIONS ........................................................................................................ 13

VII. CLIMATE CHANGE MITIGATION PROGRAM FOR INDROKILO ................................. 15

VIII. LIMITATIONS AND FURTHER RESEARCH ................................................................... 15

REFERENCES ............................................................................................................................. 17

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 GHG Emission Profile and Strategy for Indrokilo on Animal Husbandry Sector

INTRODUCTION
The Indrokilo village situated on the slopes of the Ungaran mountain in Central Java, Indonesia,
has a good and diverse agricultural potential as a source of economic activities. The village
community includes rice farmers, foresters and cattle breeders. They use the local fields for farming
and pasture for cows and sheep. However, these activities contribute to the release of greenhouse
gases (GHG), in particular methane (CH4) and nitrous oxide (N2O), into the atmosphere, therefore
contributing positively to climate change. These are quite strong GHG: for instance, a molecule of
methane has an impact 25 times greater than a molecule of carbon dioxide (Renewables
International, 2012). And at the same time the Indrokilo residents suffer from the effects of climate
change: changes in microclimate and reduced availability of water for agriculture decrease the area
of wet agricultural land by turning more and more areas into dry barren land.
Since 2008 due to the initiatives of the BINTARI Foundation (www.bintari.org) and support
from the Indonesian government, Indrokilo has made efforts to adapt and mitigate climate change
by practicing agroforestry, biogas and compost production. 2 biogas and 1 compost production
facilities have been installed in the village since then.
However, during the whole period of this GHG emissions mitigation program in Indrokilo no
estimation of emissions generated and reduced in the agriculture and animal husbandry sector has
been done. The reason is mostly the lack of the necessary data about the situation in the village and
no monitoring of the progress of the program. As a result, so far there has been absolutely no
information on how much GHG is emitted by agriculture and livestock in Indrokilo, how much
emissions reduction has been achieved due to biogas and compost production, and what GHG
emissions reduction strategies should be applied by the village community in the future.
This is why the research initiative on GHG emission profile and strategy for Indrokilo on animal
husbandry sector has been conducted, as this sector is a significant contributor to methane and
nitrous oxide emissions (Jun et al. 2000). It is still based on many assumptions due to the
difficulties in obtaining all data needed, but nevertheless can serve as a basis for further studies on
climate change mitigation in Indrokilo and other villages in Indonesia.

I. DESCRIPTION OF THE STUDY SITE

Indrokilo is a village is situated in the upstream Garang river watershed on the slope of Mount
Ungaran at an elevation of 149 meters above sea level in Central Java, Indonesia. Coordinates are
78'33"S and 11022'14"E. The center of the village lies at a latitude of -2.5349 and longitude of
120.7987. The closest big city is Semarang (Indrokilo Village, 2012).

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 GHG Emission Profile and Strategy for Indrokilo on Animal Husbandry Sector

Indrokilo lies in the tropical wet and dry, or savannah

climate zone (Aw by the Kppen climate classification).
This climate zone has 2 seasons: the dry one, which lasts
from May till September, and the wet one from October
till April. The average annual temperature is around +30
o
C.
The population of Indrokilo is approximately 600
inhabitants. About 90% of them (540 people) are farmers View on Semarang from the Indrokilo
growing rice, coffee and fruits and breeding livestock. Each village.

farmer has 2 3 (sometimes 10 or more) cows and 4 5 chickens. Some of them (5%) own sheep.
Indrokilo is part of the program 1,000 Kampung Iklim (1,000 Climate Villages) launched by
the Ministry of Environment in Indonesia and serves as a good case practice for other villages. The
GHG emissions mitigation activities supported by the BINTARI Foundation and the Indonesian
government were initiated here in 2008 and nowadays
include agroforestry, biogas and compost production. The
villagers possess 2 fixed-dome bioreactors a large one
with the capacity of 12 m3 per day and a smaller one with
the capacity of 4 m3 and 1 compost production facility
with the production capacity of around 100 kg of compost
per month. And the Indrokilo village also offers eco-
Compost production facility. tourism services (DreamUPS, 2012).

II. GOALS OF RESEARCH

The main goal of the present research was to make the GHG emissions profile of Indrokilo and
suggest feasible strategies for their reduction with the focus on the animal husbandry sector.
The concrete objectives here were the following:
- Determine the situation of GHG emissions (CH4 and N2O) during the GHG emissions
reduction program implementation in 2008 2012;
- Estimate future GHG emissions (until 2020) by the business-as-usual scenario;
- Suggest strategies for GHG emissions reductions in livestock for the future until 2020;
- Determine the optimal strategy for GHG emissions reduction in Indrokilo;
- Find out whether the GHG emissions reduction potential of the strategy will be in accordance
with the overall national goal of 26% emissions reduction by 2020 in Indonesia;
- What are the challenges for sustainability of the program and how to overcome them?

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 GHG Emission Profile and Strategy for Indrokilo on Animal Husbandry Sector

Thus, the research was aimed at producing the following outputs:

1) Current and potential GHG emissions produced by Indrokilo from the livestock sector;
2) Strategies for GHG emissions decrease suggested to be implemented by the village community,
Indonesian government and the BINTARI Foundation;
3) Challenges in ensuring sustainability of the strategies suggested and how to overcome them;
4) Feasible recommendations for the BINTARI Foundation and the community groups in
Indrokilo and other sites, where the model can be implemented.

III. METHODOLOGY
Due to the lack of data necessary for estimating GHG emissions there was a need to travel to
Indrokilo, observe and analyze the situation and conduct interviews there. Overall, there were 2
trips done to the village: the first one to get to know it and its initiatives and the second one to get
measurements and ask questions to the community leaders. These questions were the following:
1) How many people live in Indrokilo?
2) Are all of them farmers? If no, what is the share of
farmers in the community?
3) What is the area you use for farming and pasture?
4) What kind of livestock do you have?
5) How many animals do you own (cows, sheep,
poultry, etc.)?
6) How many times do they reproduce? Exploring compost production process
7) Do you plan to buy more animals? If yes, when and during one of the visits to Indrokilo.
how much?
8) What feed do you give to your animals?
9) What do you do with manure? How do you treat it?
10) How many biogas production facilities are there in Indrokilo?
11) How large is the area they occupy?
12) What is the type of bioreactors (psychrophilic, mesophilic, or thermophilic)?
13) What is their production capacity?
14) How much biogas do you produce per year?
15) How many compost production facilities do you have here?
16) How much territory do they occupy?
17) What is their production capacity?
18) How much compost do you produce per year?

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Still, not all information obtained was concrete and detailed enough for precise emissions
estimation. Therefore certain assumptions had to be used, in particular:
a) The pasture territory for cattle is assumed to be 259 ha.
b) The average ownership of livestock is 3 cows, 3 sheep and 4 chickens per farmer.
c) Typical animal mass is assumed to be: 350 kg for cows, 28 kg for sheep, 1.8 kg for poultry.
d) Excretion rate per mass is assumed to be: 0.47 for cows, 1.17 for sheep, 0.82 for poultry.
e) Each year 1/10 of cattle give birth to a calf. Therefore the annual natural growth of livestock
by business-as-usual scenario is 162 heads.
f) Acquisition of livestock is 10 cows per year.
g) The bioreactors are assumed to be of the mesophilic type, as they are cheaper to acquire.
h) During the visits, 40 cows were observed to be connected to biogas production. This
engagement is assumed for all strategies involving biogas production.
i) The production capacity of 1 compost production facility is 150 kg per month, which means it
can treat manure from 200 cows. The same
production capacity is assumed for all strategies
involving compost production.
j) Reduction of inorganic fertilizer due to higher share
of application of the organic one was not taken into
account due to the lack of data.
k) Reduced deforestation and decrease in traditional fuel
consumption due to higher biogas production were Cattle in stables in Indrokilo.
not taken into account due to the lack of data.
The model used for GHG emissions calculation was the 2006 IPCC Software for National
Greenhouse Gas Inventories (IPCC Inventory Software) with the Tier 1 approach, i.e. based on
default emission factors (Jun et al. 2000). The emission factors selected were the following:

Emission Factors Value Unit

Methane emissions from enteric fermentation:
- CH4 emission factor for cows in Asia 68 kg CH4 / (head yr)
- CH4 emission factor for sheep in developing countries 5 kg CH4 / (head yr)
Methane emissions from manure management:
- CH4 emission factor for cows in Asia 31 kg CH4 / (head yr)
- CH4 emission factor for sheep in developing countries 0.2 kg CH4 / (head yr)
- CH4 emission factor for poultry in developing countries 0.02 kg CH4 / (head yr)
Direct nitrous oxide emissions from manure management:
- N2O emission factor from biogas facilities 0 kg N2O-N / (kg N inMMS)
- N2O emission factor from in-vessel composting 0.006 kg N2O-N / (kg N inMMS)
- N2O emission factor from poultry manure 0.001 kg N2O-N / (kg N inMMS)

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 GHG Emission Profile and Strategy for Indrokilo on Animal Husbandry Sector

The calculations were done for Indonesia during the period 2008 2020 with the necessary
modifications for each strategy analyzed.

IV. STRATEGIES
There are 4 different strategies proposed for Indrokilo to be implemented from 2013 till 2020.

# Solution / Strategy Description

1 Strategy A: 2 more biogas production facilities are installed in Indrokilo: one
Biogas Management in 2013 and another one in 2017. Thus, the fraction of Manure in
system for biogas production increases to 0.5 in 2013 and 0.9 in
2017.
2 Strategy B: 1 more compost facility with the production capacity of 100 kg
Compost Management per day is installed in Indrokilo in 2013. The fraction of manure in
system for in-vessel composting increases to 0.9.
3 Strategy C: Starting from 2013 livestock growth rate in Indrokilo is limited to
Livestock Management 100 cattle per year, and from 2017 - to 80 cattle per year.
4 Strategy D: The combination of biogas, compost and livestock management in
Combination A-C Indrokilo. In 2013 1 biogas production facility and 1 compost
production facility are installed; plus since then the livestock
growth rate is limited to 100 cattle per year. In 2017 a second
biogas production facility is installed and since then the growth
rate is managed at 80 heads per year.

The first three strategies focus on one particular solution,

Fixed-dome bioreactor in Indrokilo.
Several strategies suggest installing
more of these.
be it more biogas production, more compost production or
limitations to the livestock growth rate. The last one
combines all of them to show the highest GHG emissions
reduction possible to be achieved in Indrokilo.
The GHG emissions reduction potential of each strategy
throughout 2020 was compared with the business-as-usual
scenario and with each other to determine their
performance and effectiveness, as well as find out the
optimal strategy for the Indrokilo village.

V. RESULTS AND CONCLUSIONS

V.1. Situation during 2008 2012.

The results of estimations show that the GHG emissions have been in decrease during the period
of 2008 2012. From 2.313 Gg of CO2 equivalents per year the emissions rose to 3.882 Gg, i.e. by

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approximately 1.5 Gg. This is explained mostly by the increase of the number of livestock. Even the
installation of bioreactors and compost facility could not offset the increase of emissions much.

The effect of installing biogas and compost production facilities is more obvious when we
consider methane emissions from manure management. However, as we do not consider GHG
emissions savings from reduced wood and fuel consumption, the positive effect of introducing
biogas production is very low.

However, the introduction of compost production seems to contribute to the increase of nitrous
oxide emissions. They are produced during the nitrification-denitrification of nitrogen within animal
waste (Jun et al. 2000). From about 0.5 kg of N2O per year in 2008 the emissions have risen to more

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than 150 kg. This is associated with the aerobic fermentation process of the manure during compost
production under the dry conditions of Indrokilo. Still, due to the fact that N2O as greenhouse gas is
less potent than CH4, its higher emissions are offset by the
reduction of methane emissions due to the use of animal
manure for compost production.
Generally, one should be careful in accounting nitrous
oxide emissions. At present there is not enough
quantitative data to derive a relationship between the
aeration process and N2O generation. This makes the
estimates of its emissions from manure management Composting in hot dry environment of
Indrokilo seems to be the reason of
systems highly uncertain and not always reliable (Jun et al.
increased N2O emissions.
2000).

All in all, the GHG emissions from animal husbandry

sector in Indrokilo are in constant increase with the main
driving factor being the growth of the numbers of
livestock. Biogas and compost production have been able
to slow down this increase rate, but have not managed to
reverse it or at least maintain GHG emissions under
certain limit. More facilities need to be installed to

Label on a large bioreactor stating that achieve better results. All this should be considered in
it is a donation from the government. strategies for climate change mitigation in the village.
More such donations are needed.

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 GHG Emission Profile and Strategy for Indrokilo on Animal Husbandry Sector

V.2. Emission Scenarios and Strategies until 2020.

GHG emissions from livestock in Indrokilo will continue to grow, this is certain. The estimates for
the business-as-usual scenario show that they will reach 5.2 Gg of CO2 equivalents per year by
2015, 6.0 by 2017 and 7.3 by 2020.
Although it is hardly possible to reverse the increase of emissions or even stop it, the growth rate
can still be reduced significantly through application of the strategies described earlier.
In terms of methane emissions from enteric fermentation, which are expected to reach 0.15 Gg per
year by 2015 and 0.21 Gg by 2020, the limitation of the number of cattle in the village (strategy C)
has the most impact on reducing these emissions. By implementing this solution, the Indrokilo
community can reduce its CH4 emissions by 30% in 2020 and keep them at the level of emissions in
2015 compared to the business-as-usual scenario. More biogas and compost production (strategies
A and B respectively) achieve only 10 15% by 2020. But, of course, the highest reduction is
achieved by the combination of all initiatives (strategy D) it can slash methane emissions by
almost 40% in 2020.

The methane emissions from manure management are significantly lower: according to the
business-as-usual scenario they will equal around 0.06 Gg per year by 2015 and 0.09 Gg by 2020.
The GHG emissions reduction potential of the strategies is similar to the previous case: the highest
reduction (around 30% by 2020) is achieved by strategy D, followed by strategies C (20%), B (5%)
and A (3%).

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The situation is different with nitrous oxide. Its emissions are expected to rise to 217 kg of N2O
per year by 2015 and by 316 kg by 2020. However, with the introduction of more composting
(strategy B) they may rise as high as 1306 kg of N2O per year, i.e. by approximately 70%. The best
strategy to cut off N2O emissions is biogas production it allows the emissions to be kept below the
2012 level. But if combined with other approaches (strategy D), it still results in higher nitrous
oxide emissions than business-as-usual due to high emissions from composting.

The most useful picture of GHG emissions reduction potential of all strategies is obtained when
we turn all GHG into CO2 equivalents. Here we see that although compost production (strategy B)
initiative performs better than the biogas-oriented one (strategy A) in the short term, they achieve
almost the same results in the long term around 10% by 2020. Livestock management option

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(strategy C) performs much better, reducing GHG emissions by almost 40% by 2020. Only the
combination of all activities (strategy D) brings higher reduction potential approximately 45%.

Thus, there is very good potential to reduce GHG emissions and contribute to climate change
mitigation in Indrokilo. Still, in order to benefit from it effectively, the community, government and
other stakeholders involved should explore it more attentively and implement the most feasible
solutions and strategies.

VI. RECOMMENDATIONS
Based on the information obtained during the visits to Indrokilo and the results of the GHG
emissions estimations it is possible to formulate certain recommendations for the BINTARI
Foundation, the Indonesian government and rural communities regarding climate change mitigation
at Indrokilo and other villages in Indonesia. These are the following:
1) From the analysis above it is evident that the most GHG emissions reduction result is
achieved when biogas and compost production and livestock limitation initiatives are
combined together. The strategy assessed here included the installation of 2 more bioreactors,
1 more compost production facility and livestock growth limitation to 100 and later 80 heads
per year. If feasible, more ambitious initiatives can be proposed and implemented.
2) Among all strategies, only livestock management and the biogas + compost + livestock
management combination have the potential to meet (and overdue) the 26% GHG emissions
reduction target for 2020 in Indonesia. Compost and biogas production achieve only 10%
emissions reduction. So, it seems that in order to achieve the target only strategies C and D
need to be pursued. However, the analysis here does not consider effects of biogas usage on

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reducing emissions from the energy sector, making this suggestion difficult to rely upon. This
should be taken in account especially when other studies show that biogas production when is
used for heat and energy later on performs better than a number of other GHG offsetting
initiatives (Renewables International, 2012).
3) The principal factors affecting methane emissions are climate (that cannot be influenced) the
number of animals, the amount of manure produced by them and the portion of manure that
decomposes anaerobically (Jun et al. 2000). The most emissions come from cattle with the
ones from sheep and poultry are not so significant. Therefore, CH4 emission reduction
activities should firstly target the number of cows at the site and then divert attention to the
manure management system, if it is not possible to do both at the same time.
4) The compost production strategy shows an increase of nitrous oxide emissions. This is
because aerobic composting process used in Indrokilo in a hot dry climate of Central Java
provides an environment more conductive for N2O generation (Jun et al. 2000). But the
nitrous oxide emissions increase due to composting is offset by the reduction of emissions of
methane, which is a stronger greenhouse gas. This is why it is still suggested to proceed with
compost production and try to develop the process in the way that it causes less N2 O
emissions.
5) The implementation of the compost production strategy has a serious challenge in terms of
selling the produced compost. Even at present time, i.e. in 2012, the local farmers cannot sell
all the compost they created, which makes the production potential underutilized and poses a
challenge to the sustainability of this initiative. Therefore farmers need support in finding the
permanent buyer(-s) of their compost as soon as possible.
6) Regarding the biogas production, the challenge here is farmers insufficient professional
knowledge about operation and maintenance of bioreactors. This results in a low quality
biogas production (Guo Guo, L. 2010). Hence, good technical and practical education needs
to be delivered to the farmers in the village to improve the generation of biogas.
7) Financing of the implementation of the chosen strategies (in particular, acquisition,
construction and installation of additional biogas and compost production facilities) is a
serious general challenge one should consider. The Indonesian government could obtain this
support from the developed countries through the Clean Development Mechanism (CDM),
which allows the latter to implement projects on climate change mitigation in developing
countries and obtain carbon credits for their usage on the national level. And the Indrokilo
village can further develop its eco-tourism services and offers, thus earning more profit from
it that can then be directed to fund the installation and maintenance of additional facilities.

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VII. CLIMATE CHANGE MITIGATION PROGRAM FOR INDROKILO

By using the strategies and recommendations presented above, the following action plan for the
Indrokilo village community is proposed:

This is only a tentative action plan. It needs to be checked for feasibility and aligned with the
future plans of the village community and other climate change mitigation program stakeholders.
Still, it can already be used as background for designing future GHG emissions reduction activities
in the Indrokilo village.

VIII. LIMITATIONS AND FURTHER RESEARCH

As any study done for the first time on a specific study site and based on very limited data
available, this one has a number of limitations, in particular:
1) It is based on a large number of assumptions. More information needs to be collected in the
village to turn some of these assumptions into concrete data.
2) The GHG emissions calculation uses the Tier 1 approach specified in the IPCC Guidelines. It
relies upon a number of default parameters and therefore does not accurately account for high
levels of emissions from livestock managed under confined conditions (Jun et al. 2000). The
Tier 2 approach is thus recommended, as it offers a more detailed and customized method for
estimating GHG emissions from manure management systems.
3) As the quantification of nitrous oxide generation from manure still has some large gaps in
information availability, the N2O emission estimates in the research are highly uncertain. This
area of GHG emissions from livestock should be researched more thoroughly.

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4) The relationships between different sectors and applications of manure (such as manure
applied as organic fertilizer or used for fuel) are not considered. Therefore the beneficial
effects of strategies on biogas and compost production are underestimated. Further research is
needed to account for these links and their GHG emissions reduction potential.
All in all, additional more thorough study of GHG emissions and their reduction potential in
Indrokilo and other similar villages in Indonesia should be conducted in order to reduce the
limitations of the present research work and enrich the information and knowledge about the
climate change mitigation activities and potential in the rural communities in this country.

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REFERENCES
1. DreamUPS, 2012. The Climate Village [Online]. Available at: http://dreamups.org/the-
climate-village
2. Guo Guo, L. 2010. Potential of biogas production from livestock manure in China: GHG
emission abatement from "manure-biogas-digestate" system. Chalmers University of
Technology, Gteborg
3. Indrokilo Village, 2012. Home [Online]. Available at: http://indrokilovillage.wordpress.com
4. IPCC, 2012. IPCC Inventory Software [Online]. Available at: http://www.ipcc-
nggip.iges.or.jp/software/new.html
5. JakartaGlobe, 2011. Villages Play Part In Combatting Climate Change [Online]. Available at:
http://www.thejakartaglobe.com/nvironment/villages-play-part-in-combatting-climate-
change/512552
6. Jun, P. et al. 2000. CH4 and N2O Emissions from Livestock Manure. In: Good Practice
Guidance and Uncertainty Management in National Greenhouse Gas Inventories
7. Renewables International, 2012. Bioenergy: Biogas generally better than composting
[Online]. Available at: http://www.renewablesinternational.net/biogas-generally-better-than-
composting/150/515/33468

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