With about 43% or 92.9 million people in Indonesia engaged in agriculture (FAO, 2005), a quarter of the land area under cultivation and the number of livestock farmers’ groups apparently increased from 37,000 to 54,600 groups between 1993 and 1997, shows that Indonesia has good potential for developing a long-term sustainable national domestic biogas sector. Its agriculture sector showed a substantial increase of 56% and the number of livestock households increased from 3.74 million to 4.49 million between 1983 and 1993, an increase of 20% (World Bank, 2002).

Based on the feasibility study conducted prior to the initiation of the program, Java, West Sumatra and Bali became the BIRU Programme’s initial focus as livestock density is high and a substantial part of livestock is stabled in these regions. However, the selection of new target areas is made not only taking into account the technical market potential, but also the existence of capable actors willing to immediately be involved in some of the primary functions of the national programme: construction and after sales service as well as credit provision. The selection of new target provinces is usually preceded by the implementation of a market study.

At the moment, BIRU works in seven provinces in Indonesia: East Java, DIY Yogyakarta, Central Java, West Java, Bali, West Nusa Tenggara, South Sulawesi and Lampung.