Digestate as Fertilizer

Significance of digestate in developing countries
9 Signifi cance of digestate in
developing countries
Strategies for agricultural development in developing countries – leading
to economic development – need to be geared towards affordably
increasing sustainable productivity of land under cultivation. Digestates
enter this discussion in promoting a healthy soil-plant-environment
system, with aspects like increasing organic matter in the soil
and water holding capacity toward reducing land degradation and
improving sustainable agricultural production.
Dried digestate from
anaerobic digestion
process in rural Uganda
According to the prevalent definition, a developing
country is considered a country with a less developed
industrial base and a low Human Development Index
(HDI) relative to other countries. Developing countries
include (in decreasing order of economic growth or size
of the capital market): newly industrialised countries,
emerging markets, frontier markets, and least developed
countries. Therefore, the least developed countries
are the poorest of the developing countries. The
vast majority of developing – and especially least developing
– countries are on the African continent (see
illustration: “Least developed countries”).
Developing countries tend to have some characteristics
in common: amongst other criteria, they often
have low levels of reliable and affordable access to
water, sanitation, hygiene and energy. Commonly,
they have to cope with high levels of pollution (including
water and soil pollution) and, depending on
the geographical region, often experience direct and
indirect effects of global warming (e.g. severe weather,
flooding, draughts).
Against this background, renewable energies are particularly
suitable for developing countries: especially
in rural and remote areas, transmission and distribution
of energy generated from fossil fuels, or large,
centralised power plants can be difficult and expensive,
leading to very low electrification rates in the
majority of developing countries. Producing renew-
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