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By Nita Bhalla
KITUI, Kenya, June 6 (Thomson Reuters Foundation) - Kenyan farmer Abel Mutie Mathoka believed it should be a joke when he was told he could irrigate his drought-hit crops more inexpensively, easily and efficiently using a pump sustained by cotton waste.
"Who could think it's possible to make a fuel much better than diesel from cotton seeds? I didn't!" laughed Mathoka, bending down to examine the watermelons on his 10-acre (four-hectare) shared plot in Ituri town in Kenya's southeast Kitui county.
"But it works," he said, walking over to a neighboring tree and plucking a large green pawpaw. "Irrigation with this biodiesel water pump has assisted me get greater yields, especially throughout dry spell durations."
Mathoka stated his incomes had doubled in the two years he has actually been pumping water utilizing biodiesel, which is both more effective and 20 shillings ($0.20) per litre less expensive than routine diesel.
The biodiesel he is utilizing is not just good news for him - it is also good news for the world.
Unlike a lot of biofuels, which are originated from crops such as maize, sugarcane, soybean, rapeseed and jatropha curcas, it is made from a by-product of the cotton-making process.
That implies that as well as being cleaner and cheaper than routine fuel, it is more sustainable than other biofuels due to the fact that no additional land is needed 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 change from crops-for-food to more lucrative crops-for-fuel - worsening food shortages.
"Our biodiesel comes from crushing cotton seeds left over as waste after ginning - the process of separating the seeds from raw cotton," stated Taher Zavery, managing director of Zaynagro Industries Ltd, the Kitui-based company producing the biodiesel.
"We began producing and using 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 likewise to local farmers for irrigation."
More than 1,200 farmers in Kitui have up until now bought biodiesel pumps for irrigation as part of an initiative released by Zaynagro in 2015, said Zavery.
DRY RIVER BEDS
Climate change is taking a toll across east Africa and increasingly unpredictable weather condition is becoming commonplace in countries such as Kenya, Somalia, Uganda and Ethiopia, resulting in lower rains.
The repeating droughts are ruining crops and pastures and are starving animals - pressing millions of people in the Horn of Africa to the edge of severe hunger.
The variety of Kenyans in requirement of food help in March surged by almost 70 percent over a period of 8 months to 1.1 million, largely due to bad rains, according to federal government figures.
With nearly half Kenya's 47 counties declared to have a serious scarcity of rain, humanitarian agencies are alerting of increased hunger in the months ahead.
"Only light rains is anticipated through June ... and this is not anticipated to ease dry spell in impacted locations of Kenya and Somalia," stated the Famine Early Warning Systems Network in its latest report.
"Well below-average crop production, poor animals body conditions, and increased regional food costs are anticipated, which will lower bad households' access to food."
In Kitui's Kyuso location, the indications are already evident.
Rivers, water pans and dams are drying up as a result of the prolonged dry spell.
Villagers experience travelling longer distances - sometimes more than 10 km (6 miles) with their donkeys packed with empty jerry cans looking for water.
Small-scale farmers, most of whom depend on rain-fed agriculture, discuss strategies to offer their goats to make ends satisfy if the harvest is poor.
BATTLING DROUGHT WITH BIODIESEL
But not all Kitui's farmers are fretted.
A small however growing number are shedding their concern of dependence on the weather - and investing in irrigation systems powered by Zaynagro's cotton seed biodiesel through a pay-as-you-go scheme launched more than three years back.
Neighbouring farmers band together to buy the system - which consists of the biodiesel pump, 12 metres of pipes and 10 litres of biodiesel - at costs beginning with 32,000 shillings, depending on the size of the pump.
The farmers make an initial payment, then pay interest-free monthly instalments till the total is settled. They purchase the biodiesel to run the pumps from Zaynagro at 80 shillings a litre.
Farmer Alex Babu Kitheka, 39, stated the biodiesel pump permitted him to irrigate a bigger part of his one-acre plot, where he grows a variety of veggies including 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 make 45,000 shillings," said Alex Babu Kitheka, standing near his plot in Ilangilo town, 40 km (25 miles) from Kitui town.
CIRCULAR ECONOMY
Other farmers point to the scheme as a significant benefit in assisting improve their output.
"The instalment plan is great. Most farmers do not have the cash and can not easily get a loan to buy a pump like this," said Maurice Kitheka Munyoki, 41, as he stood beside his blue biodiesel pump.
"Having a plan like this assists us a lot. Our yields are good which suggests we can pay off the cost of the pump slowly in percentages, and have money left over to pay the school costs."
Zaynagro's initiative is still in its early phases, with couple of farmers having actually repaid the complete cost of the pumps.
But such biofuel schemes are appealing because they produce a circular economy by turning waste to biofuel for earnings, said Sanjoy Sanyal, senior partner for Clean Energy Finance at the World Resources Institute.
The simplicity of the design - easy-to-use, robust innovation, ensured supply of biodiesel integrated with a pay-as-you-go plan - could help electrify rural Africa, he stated.
"There is a mosaic of sustainable energy options worldwide. The essential issue is checking concepts and approaches in a collective style," said Sanyal.
"Other cotton ginning factories in the area ought to try and gain from this experiment. Banks should start exploring with loans to groups of farmers. International donors and investors 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, females's and LGBT+ rights, human trafficking, property rights and environment change. Visit http://news.trust.org)
This will delete the page "Cotton Waste Biofuel Powers Farmers to Combat Drought In Kenya"
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