By Nita Bhalla

KITUI, Kenya, June 6 (Thomson Reuters Foundation) - Kenyan farmer Abel Mutie Mathoka thought it should be a joke when he was told he could water his drought-hit crops more cheaply, easily and efficiently using 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!" 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, strolling over to a neighboring tree and plucking a big green pawpaw. "Irrigation with this biodiesel water pump has actually helped me get higher yields, particularly throughout drought periods."

Mathoka said his incomes had 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 less expensive than routine diesel.

The biodiesel he is using is not just great news for him - it is likewise great news for the world.

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

That indicates that as well as being cleaner and cheaper than routine fuel, it is more sustainable than other biofuels because no additional land is needed to produce it.

From Brazil to Indonesia, the rush to cultivate biofuel crops has driven forest communities 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 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, sell it to the United Nations to run some of their buses - and likewise to local farmers for watering."

More than 1,200 farmers in Kitui have actually up until now purchased biodiesel pumps for watering 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 increasingly unpredictable weather condition is becoming commonplace in countries such as Kenya, Somalia, Uganda and Ethiopia, leading to lower rains.

The recurring droughts are ruining crops and pastures and are starving animals - pressing countless people in the Horn of Africa to the edge of extreme hunger.

The variety of Kenyans in requirement of food aid in March rose by nearly 70 percent over a duration of 8 months to 1.1 million, mainly due to bad rains, according to federal government figures.

With nearly half Kenya's 47 counties declared to have a severe shortage of rain, humanitarian firms are alerting of increased appetite in the months ahead.

"Only light rainfall is anticipated through June ... and this is not expected to alleviate dry spell in impacted areas of Kenya and Somalia," stated the Famine Early Warning Systems in its most current report.

"Well below-average crop production, poor animals body conditions, and increased local food rates are prepared for, which will minimize bad families' access to food."

In Kitui's Kyuso area, the indications are currently apparent.

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

Villagers suffer travelling longer ranges - 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 depend on rain-fed agriculture, 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 fretted.

A small but growing number are shedding their problem of dependence on the weather condition - and buying irrigation systems powered by Zaynagro's cotton seed biodiesel through a pay-as-you-go scheme released more than three years ago.

Neighbouring farmers unite to purchase the irrigation 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 a preliminary payment, then pay interest-free regular monthly instalments up until the overall is settled. 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 portion of his one-acre plot, where he grows a range of vegetables consisting of 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 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 indicate the plan as a significant benefit in assisting improve their output.

"The instalment plan is great. Most farmers don't have the money and can not easily get a loan to purchase a pump like this," stated Maurice Kitheka Munyoki, 41, as he stood next to his blue biodiesel pump.

"Having a scheme like this helps us a lot. Our yields are good which implies we can pay off the cost of the pump gradually in percentages, and have money left over to pay the school charges."

Zaynagro's initiative is still in its early phases, with few farmers having actually repaid the full cost of the pumps.

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

The simpleness of the design - easy-to-use, robust technology, guaranteed supply of biodiesel combined with a pay-as-you-go plan - might assist electrify rural Africa, he stated.

"There is a mosaic of sustainable energy alternatives worldwide. The essential problem is checking concepts and techniques in a collaborative fashion," said Sanyal.

"Other cotton ginning factories in the area need to attempt and find out from this experiment. Financial organizations ought to start explore loans to groups of farmers. International donors and investors 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, property rights and environment modification. Visit http://news.trust.org)