Journal of Energy Bioscience 2025, Vol.16, No.4, 172-181 http://bioscipublisher.com/index.php/jeb 177 7 Socioeconomic Impacts 7.1 Farmer adoption and incentives: analysis of barriers and motivators Whether farmers are willing to participate is directly related to whether the use of sweet potatoes as energy can be promoted. Although the planting technology of sweet potatoes is very mature and the efficiency of producing biogas is also good, many farmers still have concerns about this. Some common problems include: not knowing how to use biogas, not knowing whether it can make money, the equipment is too expensive, the payback time is too long, and the market is unstable (Shi et al., 2025). However, if the government provides subsidies, technical guidance, or there are cooperatives in the village to help, farmers' willingness to participate will be significantly improved. Especially when they find that using biogas residues and liquid biogas in the fields can reduce the use of fertilizers, save money and be environmentally friendly, many people gradually begin to accept sweet potatoes as energy crops, and believe that this method is more cost-effective in the long run (Tang et al., 2022) (Figure 2). Figure 2 System boundary of sweet potato and reference crops (i.e., rice, maize, and potato) production 7.2 Job creation and income diversification: from cultivation to processing The sweet potato biogas project has brought many job opportunities to rural areas and made income more diverse. Sweet potato planting requires manpower, and harvesting, storage, transportation, maintenance of biogas equipment, and treatment of biogas residue can also provide non-agricultural jobs. Some surveys have found that if there are 100 households in a village, 10 to 20 stable jobs can be added just by the sweet potato biogas chain. In addition, some places have developed side businesses such as sweet potato flour, alcohol, and feed to make the rural economy more active. In terms of gender, women actually do a lot of work in this system. Planting sweet potatoes, cutting sweet potatoes, and maintaining the biogas digester at home are all done by women. They prefer clean, trouble-free and energy-saving energy methods. However, in some key links, such as cooperative management, technical training and project design, women's participation is not high enough. If there are more "female demonstration households" and more agricultural technology courses specifically for women, it will not only improve their acceptance of technology, but also help families use biogas faster, and promote gender equality and the unity of rural communities (Montoro et al., 2025). 7.3 Gender and equity considerations: roles of women in energy crop systems Combining the sweet potato energy system with local cooperatives is a key to its long-term operation. Many places now adopt the "farmers + cooperatives + enterprises" approach. Farmers are responsible for growing sweet potatoes, cooperatives are responsible for management and technology, and enterprises are responsible for selling biogas or processing by-products. This division of labor not only improves overall efficiency, but also makes it
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