By Nita Bhalla

KITUI, Kenya, June 6 ( Foundation) - Kenyan farmer Abel Mutie Mathoka believed it must be a joke when he was informed he could irrigate his drought-hit crops more cheaply, easily and effectively utilizing a pump fuelled by cotton waste.

“Who could believe it’s possible to make a fuel better than diesel from cotton seeds? I didn’t!” laughed Mathoka, bending 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, walking over to a close-by tree and plucking a large green pawpaw. “Irrigation with this biodiesel water pump has helped me get greater yields, specifically during dry spell periods.”

Mathoka stated his earnings had doubled in the two years he has been pumping water using biodiesel, which is both more efficient and 20 shillings ($0.20) per litre cheaper than routine diesel.

The biodiesel he is utilizing is not just good news for him - it is also good news for the planet.

Unlike many biofuels, which are obtained from crops such as maize, sugarcane, soybean, rapeseed and jatropha curcas, it is made from a byproduct of the cotton-making process.

That indicates that along with being cleaner and more affordable than regular fuel, it is more sustainable than other biofuels because no extra 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 switch from crops-for-food to more successful crops-for-fuel - worsening food scarcities.

“Our biodiesel originates 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 company 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, 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 actually so far purchased biodiesel pumps for irrigation as part of an effort released by Zaynagro in 2015, said Zavery.

DRY RIVER BEDS

Climate change is taking a toll throughout east Africa and increasingly erratic weather condition is ending up being commonplace in countries such as Kenya, Somalia, Uganda and Ethiopia, leading to lower rains.

The repeating dry spells are ruining crops and pastures and are starving animals - pressing countless individuals in the Horn of Africa to the edge of severe hunger.

The variety of Kenyans in need of food help in March surged by nearly 70 percent over a duration of eight months to 1.1 million, largely due to poor rains, according to federal government figures.

With practically half Kenya’s 47 counties stated to have a major shortage of rain, humanitarian companies are cautioning of increased cravings in the months ahead.

“Only light rains is anticipated through June … and this is not anticipated to reduce dry spell in impacted areas of Kenya and Somalia,” said the Famine Early Warning Systems Network in its newest report.

“Well below-average crop production, bad livestock body conditions, and increased local food prices are prepared for, which will lower bad homes’ access to food.”

In Kitui’s Kyuso area, the indications are already 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 laden with empty jerry cans looking for water.

Small-scale farmers, the majority of whom are reliant on rain-fed agriculture, talk about strategies to offer their goats to make ends fulfill if the harvest is poor.

BATTLING DROUGHT WITH BIODIESEL

But not all Kitui’s farmers are stressed.

A small but growing number are shedding their concern of reliance on the weather condition - and buying watering systems powered by Zaynagro’s cotton seed biodiesel through a pay-as-you-go plan released more than three years back.

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

The farmers make an initial payment, then pay interest-free monthly instalments until the overall is settled. They buy the biodiesel to run the pumps from Zaynagro at 80 shillings a litre.

Farmer Alex Babu Kitheka, 39, said the biodiesel pump permitted him to irrigate a bigger part of his one-acre plot, where he grows a variety of vegetables including maize, tomatoes, spinach and sweet potatoes.

“With a diesel pump, maize yields were lower and I would get 15,000 shillings in 3 months. With the biodiesel pump, I can earn 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 indicate the plan as a major benefit in assisting improve their output.

“The instalment plan is excellent. Most farmers do not have the cash and can not quickly 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 helps us a lot. Our yields are good which means we can pay off the cost of the pump gradually in little quantities, and have cash left over to pay the school charges.”

Zaynagro’s initiative is still in its early phases, with few farmers having actually paid back the complete expense of the pumps.

But such biofuel schemes are promising due to the fact that they produce a circular economy by turning waste to biofuel for profit, said Sanjoy Sanyal, senior partner for Clean Energy Finance at the World Resources Institute.

The simpleness of the model - easy-to-use, robust innovation, assured supply of biodiesel integrated with a pay-as-you-go plan - could help energize rural Africa, he stated.

“There is a mosaic of sustainable energy alternatives in the world. The key problem is testing concepts and methods in a collective style,” stated Sanyal.

“Other cotton ginning factories in the region need to try and gain from this experiment. Banks need to start try out 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, females’s and LGBT+ rights, human trafficking, property rights and climate modification. Visit http://news.trust.org)