By Nita Bhalla
KITUI, Kenya, June 6 (Thomson Reuters Foundation) - Kenyan farmer Abel Mutie Mathoka believed it needs to be a joke when he was told he could water his drought-hit crops more cheaply, cleanly and efficiently utilizing a pump sustained by cotton waste.
"Who could think it's possible to make a fuel better than diesel from cotton seeds? I didn't!" chuckled Mathoka, bending down to inspect 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, specifically during dry spell durations."
Mathoka stated his revenues had doubled in the 2 years he has 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 simply excellent news for him - it is also great news for the planet.
Unlike most 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 along with being cleaner and cheaper than regular 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 pushed farmers to switch from crops-for-food to more successful crops-for-fuel - exacerbating food lacks.
"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, handling of Zaynagro Industries Ltd, the Kitui-based business producing the biodiesel.
"We began producing and utilizing it to power our cotton ginning factory in 2011. With increased production, we now use it for our trucks, sell it to the United Nations to run some of their buses - and also to local farmers for watering."
More than 1,200 farmers in Kitui have actually so far purchased biodiesel pumps for irrigation as part of an initiative introduced by Zaynagro in 2015, said Zavery.
DRY RIVER BEDS
Climate change is taking a toll across east Africa and significantly irregular weather is ending up being commonplace in countries such as Kenya, Somalia, Uganda and Ethiopia, resulting in lower rains.
The repeating droughts are destroying crops and pastures and are starving animals - pushing countless individuals in the Horn of Africa to the brink of extreme hunger.
The variety of Kenyans in requirement of food help in March surged 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 declared to have a serious shortage of rain, humanitarian companies are cautioning of increased hunger in the months ahead.
"Only light rainfall is anticipated through June ... and this is not anticipated to reduce dry spell 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 prices are prepared for, which will reduce poor homes' access to food."
In Kitui's Kyuso area, the indications are already apparent.
Rivers, water pans and dams are drying up as an outcome of the prolonged dry spell.
Villagers experience trekking longer ranges - in some cases more than 10 km (6 miles) with their donkeys laden with empty jerry cans looking for water.
Small-scale farmers, the majority of whom depend on rain-fed farming, go over strategies to offer their goats to make ends meet if the harvest is poor.
BATTLING DROUGHT WITH BIODIESEL
But not all Kitui's farmers are stressed.
A little however growing number are shedding their burden of dependence on the weather - and purchasing irrigation systems powered by Zaynagro's cotton seed biodiesel through a pay-as-you-go plan introduced more than three years back.
Neighbouring farmers unite to purchase the watering system - that includes the biodiesel pump, 12 metres of pipelines 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 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 permitted him to irrigate a larger portion 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 make 45,000 shillings," said Alex Babu Kitheka, standing near his plot in Ilangilo village, 40 km (25 miles) from Kitui town.
CIRCULAR ECONOMY
Other farmers point to the scheme as a major benefit in assisting improve their output.
"The instalment scheme is good. Most farmers do not have the cash and can not easily get a loan to buy a pump like this," stated 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 suggests we can settle the cost of the pump slowly 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 cost of the pumps.
But such biofuel plans are promising since they develop 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 simpleness of the design - user friendly, robust innovation, assured supply of biodiesel integrated with a pay-as-you-go scheme - might help electrify rural Africa, he said.
"There is a mosaic of sustainable energy choices on the planet. The key concern is testing concepts and methods in a collaborative fashion," stated Sanyal.
"Other cotton ginning factories in the region need to attempt and gain from this experiment. Banks ought to start 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, residential or commercial property rights and climate change. Visit http://news.trust.org)
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Cotton Waste Biofuel Powers Farmers to Combat Drought In Kenya
Mack Hemmant edited this page 2025-01-11 13:38:31 -05:00