By Nita Bhalla

KITUI, Kenya, June 6 (Thomson Reuters Foundation) - Kenyan farmer Abel Mutie Mathoka thought it should be a joke when he was informed he could water his drought-hit crops more cheaply, cleanly and efficiently utilizing a pump sustained by cotton waste.

“Who could believe it’s possible to make a fuel 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 close-by tree and plucking a big green pawpaw. “Irrigation with this biodiesel water pump has helped me get higher yields, especially throughout dry spell periods.”

Mathoka said his incomes had actually doubled in the 2 years he has actually been pumping water using biodiesel, which is both more effective and 20 shillings ($0.20) per litre cheaper than routine diesel.

The biodiesel he is utilizing is not simply excellent news for him - it is also good news for the world.

Unlike the majority 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 procedure.

That suggests that along with being cleaner and cheaper than routine fuel, it is more sustainable than other biofuels since no extra land is required to produce it.

From Brazil to Indonesia, the rush to cultivate biofuel crops has actually driven forest communities off their land and pressed farmers to change from crops-for-food to more successful crops-for-fuel - exacerbating food shortages.

“Our biodiesel comes from squashing cotton seeds left over as waste after ginning - the procedure of separating the seeds from raw cotton,” stated Taher Zavery, managing director of Zaynagro Industries Ltd, the Kitui-based company producing the biodiesel.

“We started producing and using it to power our cotton ginning factory in 2011. With increased production, we now use it for our trucks, offer it to the United Nations to run a few of their buses - and likewise to regional farmers for watering.”

More than 1,200 farmers in Kitui have so far purchased biodiesel pumps for irrigation as part of an initiative released by Zaynagro in 2015, said Zavery.

DRY RIVER BEDS

Climate modification is taking a toll throughout east Africa and progressively unpredictable weather condition is becoming commonplace in countries such as Kenya, Somalia, Uganda and Ethiopia, leading to lower rains.

The recurring dry spells are damaging crops and pastures and are starving animals - pushing millions of individuals in the Horn of Africa to the brink of extreme appetite.

The variety of Kenyans in requirement of food help in March rose by almost 70 percent over a duration of eight months to 1.1 million, mainly due to poor rains, according to federal government figures.

With nearly half Kenya’s 47 counties stated to have a major shortage of rain, humanitarian agencies are cautioning of increased cravings 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,” said 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 expected, which will lower bad homes’ access to food.”

In Kitui’s Kyuso area, the indications are currently obvious.

Rivers, water pans and dams are drying up as an outcome of the prolonged dry spell.

Villagers experience trekking longer distances - often more than 10 km (6 miles) with their donkeys packed with empty jerry cans looking for water.

Small-scale farmers, the majority of whom depend on rain-fed agriculture, go over strategies to sell their goats to make ends fulfill if the harvest is poor.

BATTLING DROUGHT WITH BIODIESEL

But not all Kitui’s farmers are worried.

A little however growing number are their burden of dependence on the weather condition - and buying watering systems powered by Zaynagro’s cotton seed biodiesel through a pay-as-you-go scheme launched more than three years back.

Neighbouring farmers unite to invest in the watering system - which consists of the biodiesel pump, 12 metres of pipelines and 10 litres of biodiesel - at costs beginning from 32,000 shillings, depending on the size of the pump.

The farmers make a preliminary payment, then pay interest-free month-to-month instalments until the overall is paid off. They buy the biodiesel to run the pumps from Zaynagro at 80 shillings a litre.

Farmer Alex Babu Kitheka, 39, said the biodiesel pump enabled him to water a bigger part of his one-acre plot, where he grows a range 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 plan as a major advantage in helping improve their output.

“The instalment scheme is excellent. Most farmers don’t have the cash and can not quickly get a loan to buy a pump like this,” stated Maurice Kitheka Munyoki, 41, as he stood next to his blue biodiesel pump.

“Having a plan like this helps us a lot. Our yields are great which implies we can settle the cost of the pump gradually in percentages, and have money left over to pay the school charges.”

Zaynagro’s effort is still in its early phases, with few farmers having repaid the full expense of the pumps.

But such biofuel schemes are promising due to the fact that they develop a circular economy by turning waste to biofuel for revenue, stated Sanjoy Sanyal, senior associate for Clean Energy Finance at the World Resources Institute.

The simplicity of the design - easy-to-use, robust technology, guaranteed supply of biodiesel integrated with a pay-as-you-go plan - might help electrify rural Africa, he said.

“There is a mosaic of sustainable energy choices on the planet. The crucial problem is checking concepts and approaches in a collective style,” stated Sanyal.

“Other cotton ginning factories in the region need to attempt and gain from this experiment. Financial organizations must begin experimenting with loans to groups of farmers. International donors and financiers require 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, ladies’s and LGBT+ rights, human trafficking, home rights and environment modification. Visit http://news.trust.org)