By Nita Bhalla
KITUI, Kenya, June 6 (Thomson Reuters Foundation) - Kenyan farmer Abel Mutie Mathoka believed it must be a joke when he was told he might irrigate his drought-hit crops more cheaply, cleanly and effectively using a pump fuelled by cotton waste.
"Who could believe it's possible to make a fuel much better than diesel from cotton seeds? I didn't!" chuckled Mathoka, crouching down to check the watermelons on his 10-acre (four-hectare) shared plot in Ituri town in Kenya's southeast Kitui county.
"But it works," he stated, strolling over to a neighboring tree and plucking a large green pawpaw. "Irrigation with this biodiesel water pump has helped me get higher yields, especially throughout drought durations."
Mathoka stated his profits had actually doubled in the 2 years he has actually been pumping water using biodiesel, which is both more efficient and 20 shillings ($0.20) per litre more affordable than routine diesel.
The biodiesel he is using is not just good news for him - it is likewise great news for the world.
Unlike a lot of biofuels, which are derived from crops such as maize, sugarcane, soybean, rapeseed and jatropha, it is made from a by-product of the cotton-making procedure.
That implies that in addition to being cleaner and cheaper than routine fuel, it is more sustainable than other biofuels because no additional land is required to produce it.
From Brazil to Indonesia, the rush to cultivate biofuel crops has actually driven forest neighborhoods off their land and pressed farmers to switch from crops-for-food to more lucrative crops-for-fuel - intensifying food scarcities.
"Our biodiesel comes from crushing cotton seeds left over as waste after ginning - the process of separating the seeds from raw cotton," said Taher Zavery, managing director of Zaynagro Industries Ltd, the Kitui-based business producing the biodiesel.
"We started producing and utilizing it to power our cotton ginning factory in 2011. With increased production, we now utilize it for our trucks, sell it to the United Nations to run some of their buses - and also to regional farmers for watering."
More than 1,200 farmers in Kitui have actually up until now invested in biodiesel pumps for irrigation as part of an effort released by Zaynagro in 2015, said Zavery.
DRY RIVER BEDS
Climate modification is taking a toll across east Africa and progressively unpredictable weather condition is becoming commonplace in countries such as Kenya, Somalia, Uganda and Ethiopia, leading to lower rainfall.
The repeating dry spells are ruining crops and pastures and are starving animals - pressing countless people in the Horn of Africa to the brink of severe hunger.
The number of Kenyans in need of food help in March rose by nearly 70 percent over a period of eight months to 1.1 million, mostly due to bad rains, according to federal government figures.
With practically half Kenya's 47 counties declared to have a serious lack of rain, humanitarian firms are alerting of increased appetite in the months ahead.
"Only light rainfall is anticipated through June ... and this is not anticipated to relieve drought in impacted areas of Kenya and Somalia," stated the Famine Early Warning Systems Network in its latest report.
"Well below-average crop production, bad livestock body conditions, and increased local food rates are anticipated, which will reduce poor families' access to food."
In Kitui's Kyuso location, the indications are already apparent.
Rivers, water pans and dams are drying up as an outcome of the extended drought.
Villagers experience travelling longer distances - in some cases more than 10 km (6 miles) with their donkeys laden with empty jerry cans in search of water.
Small-scale farmers, most of whom are reliant on rain-fed farming, discuss strategies to sell their goats to make ends meet if the harvest is bad.
BATTLING DROUGHT WITH BIODIESEL
But not all Kitui's farmers are fretted.
A small however growing number are shedding their concern of reliance on the weather - and purchasing watering systems powered by Zaynagro's cotton seed biodiesel through a pay-as-you-go plan released more than 3 years ago.
Neighbouring farmers band together to invest in the watering system - which consists of the biodiesel pump, 12 metres of pipelines and 10 litres of biodiesel - at costs beginning with 32,000 shillings, depending upon the size of the pump.
The farmers make a preliminary payment, then pay interest-free month-to-month instalments till the total is paid off. They purchase the biodiesel to run the pumps from Zaynagro at 80 shillings a litre.
Farmer Alex Babu Kitheka, 39, said the biodiesel pump allowed him to irrigate a larger part of his one-acre plot, where he grows a range of veggies consisting of maize, tomatoes, spinach and sweet potatoes.
"With a diesel pump, maize yields were lower and I would get 15,000 shillings in three months. With the biodiesel pump, I can earn 45,000 shillings," stated Alex Babu Kitheka, standing near his plot in Ilangilo town, 40 km (25 miles) from Kitui town.
CIRCULAR ECONOMY
Other farmers indicate the plan as a major advantage in assisting improve their output.
"The instalment scheme is good. Most farmers don't have the money and can not easily get a loan to purchase a pump like this," said Maurice Kitheka Munyoki, 41, as he stood beside his blue biodiesel pump.
"Having a scheme like this assists us a lot. Our yields are excellent which indicates we can pay off the expense of the pump gradually in percentages, and have money left over to pay the school costs."
Zaynagro's effort is still in its early stages, with few farmers having actually repaid the full expense of the pumps.
But such biofuel plans are promising due to the fact that they produce a circular economy by turning waste to biofuel for profit, said Sanjoy Sanyal, senior associate for Clean Energy Finance at the World Resources Institute.
The simpleness of the design - user friendly, robust technology, of biodiesel integrated with a pay-as-you-go plan - might help amaze rural Africa, he stated.
"There is a mosaic of sustainable energy choices worldwide. The key issue is evaluating concepts and methods in a collective fashion," said Sanyal.
"Other cotton ginning factories in the region must try and gain from this experiment. Banks must begin explore loans to groups of farmers. International donors and financiers need to support experimentation."
($1 = 101.3000 Kenyan shillings) (Reporting by Nita Bhalla @nitabhalla, Editing by Claire Cozens. Please credit the Thomson Reuters Foundation, the charitable arm of Thomson Reuters, that covers humanitarian news, women's and LGBT+ rights, human trafficking, property rights and environment modification. Visit http://news.trust.org)
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Cotton Waste Biofuel Powers Farmers to Eliminate Drought In Kenya
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