SPARKNET Bibliography

Author and Title	Burne, Simon, "Rural Industry and the Commercialisation of Biomass"
Article in	ITDG, April 1986, 14 pp.
Available online at
End use	Household energy
Energy technology
Issue	Health impacts on women versus men; reducing women's workload; women's needs
Level	Research
Description	This paper looks at the interrelation between rural industry and biomass, and especially at the extent to which shortage of biomass are providing a constraint on rural development and at the effects on biomass supply and its price that biomass-consuming industries have. The paper concentrates particular on the domestic and village level, because it is a valuable source of income and employment for women. ‘commercialisation' is meant more in this paper then just ‘monetisation'; biomass is becoming commercial when it is traded. When a women has to make a consciousness trade-off between two things she values, for example cooked food against time to collect firewood, this decision can be called commercial. In the paper describes the current effect of increasing biomass shortages on rural industries, their reactions to it and the scope for longer term innovations to bring biomass supply and demand back into balance to save and develop these very small-scale industries.

This bibliography item provided with financial support of the Department for International Development of the UK Government (DFID) and ENERGIA International Network on Gender and Sustainable Energy