"This book integrates policy, technology, and action research methods in providing new perspectives and tools for Asian village decision makers and planners who seek more effective uses of energy in important rural tasks. The cooperative research on which the book is based was motivated by two policy concerns: the supply instability and price uncertainty of petroleum-based fuels, fertilizers, and pesticides; and the environmental depletion associated with widespread dependency on firewood and farm residues for cooking fuel. The authors combine the voices and knowledge of women and men who produce and use rural energy with analyses and assessments by engineers, economists, agricultural scientists, and anthropologists to clarify these issues while filling serious information gaps about the use and substitution of fossil and biomass fuels. The book focuses initially on cooking fuel required to meet food and nutrition needs. It demonstrates research methods linking energy with farming systems to increase agricultural productivity and to support other income- and employment-generating activities in rural areas. The authors thereby establish a research agenda through which rural residents, interacting with specialists and policymakers, can build upon their own experience and values in organizing socially and environmentally appropriate rural energy systems."

This volume had its origin at a conference held in 1978 at the East- West Center that considered the short- and long-term energy problems of the Asia-Pacific region. That group of national energy policymakers, scientists, and technologists agreed that providing adequate energy for the rural areas of the developing countries looms large as one of the more critical problems of the region. Encouraged by this consensus, the East-West Resource Systems Institute obtained a grant from the Agency for International Development for the purpose of initiating a collaborative, multi-country study of rural energy problems. The National Research Council of Thailand and the East-West Center agreed to work closely together as twin foci for the coordination of the effort.