Empowering Women Farmers: How Sistema.bio is Driving Rights, Equality, and Empowerment for All

March 8, 2025

Sistema.bio News Gender Equality (SDG 5)

This International Women’s Day 2025, we celebrate the theme “Rights. Equality. Empowerment. For ALL women and girls.” This year’s call to action is a reminder that achieving equal rights, power, and opportunities for women and girls is not just an aspiration—it’s essential for an equitable future. At Sistema.bio, we proudly stand with rural women farmers, who are at the forefront of food security, climate action, and community resilience. Through our innovative biodigester technology, we are breaking down barriers and enabling women to transform their lives, families, and communities.

Rural Women: The Backbone of Agriculture and Food Security

Rural women are the driving force behind global food systems. According to the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), women produce between 60 and 80% of the food in most developing countries and are responsible for half of the world’s food production. They plant, cultivate, harvest, and process crops while simultaneously managing households and ensuring food security. However, their contributions often go unrecognized, and they face systemic challenges such as limited access to land, financial resources, and decision-making power. At Sistema.bio, we recognize that empowering rural women is key to unlocking economic growth and driving sustainable development. Our biodigester technology provides women with access to clean energy, improves agricultural productivity, and creates new economic opportunities—allowing them to thrive as farmers, entrepreneurs, and leaders.

How Sistema.bio Empowers Women Farmers

Access to Clean Energy and Organic Fertilizer

For millions of women in rural Africa, Asia, and Latin America, cooking is a daily challenge. The traditional reliance on firewood and charcoal exposes them to harmful smoke, increasing the risk of respiratory diseases, and contributes to environmental degradation. Women and girls often spend hours collecting firewood, time that could be spent on education, economic activities, or rest. Sistema.bio’s biodigesters offer a sustainable solution by converting organic waste into biogas—a clean and reliable fuel source. This eliminates the need for firewood, significantly reduces indoor air pollution, and improves family health and well-being. Additionally, our biodigesters produce organic bioslurry, which enhances soil fertility and boosts crop yields. Women farmers can use this nutrient-rich fertilizer to improve agricultural production, ensuring better food security and creating opportunities to generate additional income through surplus sales.

Creating Opportunities and Breaking Barriers

Beyond clean energy, biogas unlocks new economic possibilities for women. Across different regions, women are leveraging our technology to launch and scale small businesses—whether it’s food production or selling surplus bioslurry. Investing in women is not just about fairness—it’s a catalyst for economic growth and community resilience. When women have access to clean energy and economic opportunities, entire communities thrive. At Sistema.bio, we recognize that true empowerment means more than just access to technology—it’s about creating lasting change by challenging gender norms, advocating for women’s rights, and fostering inclusive economic participation.

The Clean Impact Bond: Quantifying Health and Gender Benefits

According to the Clean Impact Bond: Mobilizing Finance for Clean Cooking report produced by the International Finance Corporation (IFC), clean cooking solutions can significantly enhance health, empower women, and reduce climate impacts. Sistema.bio was the chosen technology to run the study, conducted with a sample of women farmers across 10 regions of Kenya. The outcomes of this initiative aimed to improve health, reduce mortality, and increase women’s Quality Time through the use of biogas digesters for rural families. The implementation of Sistema.bio’s biogas stoves delivered substantial health and gender co-benefits. Each biogas stove contributed to 21.2 days of healthy life per year per household, equating to 0.058 aDALYs per year, resulting in a total of 696 aDALYs across 12,000 households. This health impact translated into an annual value of $105 per household. On the gender front, the stoves provided women and girls in each household with an additional 285 hours of Quality Time annually, facilitating increased productivity and leisure. These improvements, with the 12,000 stoves, collectively added 3,420,000 productive hours for women. Furthermore, the Clean Impact Bond leverages the Gold Standard certification to quantify and certify the health and gender co-benefits gained, ensuring rigorous standards for climate and development interventions and stakeholder inclusivity.

Biogas Technology: A High Socio-Economic Impact

Biogas technology offers a transformative way to address climate change, health challenges, gender inequality, and energy access, all while improving livelihoods. According to Gold Standard, biogas projects have the highest socio-economic impact out of all carbon project categories. This robust socio-economic value highlights not only the environmental benefits of biogas but also the direct impact it has on rural communities, especially women. Sistema.bio has carried out extensive work with external parties on the development of the theory of change behind our projects, contributing to various SDGs including SDG 5 (Gender Equality), SDG 7 (Affordable and Clean Energy), SDG 13 (Climate Action), and SDG 12 (Responsible Consumption and Production). By creating a proven framework for sustainable development, we ensure our work delivers measurable and lasting outcomes for the women and communities we serve.

Contributing to more Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)

Our biodigester technology directly contributes to several SDGs, unlocking opportunities for rural women:

This International Women’s Day, we celebrate the resilience, strength, and leadership of women farmers who feed the world and drive regenerative agriculture. By investing in women, we invest in a more inclusive and prosperous future for all.

Join us in championing women farmers and shaping a world where they can reach their full potential.

Want to learn more? Contact us today.