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By Nita Bhalla

KITUI, Kenya, June 6 (Thomson Reuters Foundation) - Kenyan farmer Abel Mutie Mathoka thought it needs to be a joke when he was informed he could irrigate his drought-hit crops more cheaply, easily and efficiently using a pump fuelled by cotton waste.

"Who could believe it's possible to make a fuel much 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 said, walking over to a close-by tree and plucking a big green pawpaw. "Irrigation with this biodiesel water pump has helped me get greater yields, specifically throughout dry spell durations."

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

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

Unlike most 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 procedure.

That implies that in addition to being cleaner and cheaper than regular 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 actually driven forest communities off their land and pushed farmers to switch from crops-for-food to more successful crops-for-fuel - worsening food shortages.

"Our biodiesel comes from squashing cotton seeds left over as waste after ginning - the procedure of separating the seeds from raw cotton," said Taher Zavery, managing director of Zaynagro Industries Ltd, the Kitui-based business 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 some of their buses - and likewise to regional farmers for irrigation."

More than 1,200 farmers in Kitui have so far bought biodiesel pumps for watering as part of an effort launched by Zaynagro in 2015, said Zavery.

DRY RIVER BEDS

Climate modification is taking a toll across east Africa and increasingly unpredictable weather condition is ending up being 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 - pushing millions of people in the Horn of Africa to the brink of extreme hunger.

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

With practically half Kenya's 47 counties declared to have a major scarcity of rain, humanitarian firms are warning of increased appetite in the months ahead.

"Only light rainfall is forecast through June ... and this is not expected to relieve drought in impacted areas of Kenya and Somalia," said the Famine Early Warning Systems Network in its latest report.

"Well below-average crop production, poor livestock body conditions, and increased local food rates are expected, which will minimize poor homes' access to food."

In Kitui's Kyuso area, the signs are currently obvious.

Rivers, water pans and dams are drying up as a result of the prolonged drought.

Villagers experience travelling longer ranges - in some cases more than 10 km (6 miles) with their donkeys laden with empty jerry cans in search of water.

Small-scale farmers, the majority of whom depend on rain-fed farming, go over plans to sell 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 however growing number are shedding their problem of dependence on the weather - and purchasing 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 purchase the watering system - that includes the biodiesel pump, 12 metres of pipes and 10 litres of biodiesel - at costs beginning from 32,000 shillings, depending upon the size of the pump.

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

Farmer Alex Babu Kitheka, 39, stated the biodiesel pump allowed him to water a bigger 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 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 scheme as a significant advantage in assisting enhance their output.

"The instalment plan is good. Most farmers do not have the money and can not quickly 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 assists us a lot. Our yields are good which means we can settle the expense of the pump gradually in percentages, and have cash left over to pay the school costs."

Zaynagro's initiative is still in its early stages, with couple of farmers having repaid the complete expense of the pumps.

But such biofuel schemes are appealing because they develop a circular economy by turning waste to biofuel for revenue, stated Sanjoy Sanyal, senior partner for Clean Energy Finance at the World Resources Institute.

The simpleness of the design - user friendly, robust technology, ensured supply of biodiesel integrated with a pay-as-you-go scheme - could help amaze rural Africa, he stated.

"There is a mosaic of sustainable energy alternatives on the planet. The key problem is checking ideas and techniques in a collective style," stated Sanyal.

"Other cotton ginning factories in the area ought to try and learn from this experiment. Financial institutions should begin try out 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, home rights and climate modification. Visit http://news.trust.org)