By Nita Bhalla

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

"Who could think it's possible to make a fuel better than diesel from cotton seeds? I didn't!" laughed 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 neighboring tree and plucking a big green pawpaw. "Irrigation with this biodiesel water pump has actually helped me get higher yields, particularly during dry spell periods."

Mathoka said his revenues had doubled in the two years he has been pumping water utilizing biodiesel, which is both more effective and 20 shillings ($0.20) per litre less expensive than regular diesel.

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

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

That means that as well as being cleaner and more affordable 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 rewarding crops-for-fuel - exacerbating food lacks.

"Our biodiesel originates 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 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 also to regional farmers for irrigation."

More than 1,200 farmers in Kitui have up until now purchased biodiesel pumps for irrigation as part of an initiative released by Zaynagro in 2015, stated Zavery.

DRY RIVER BEDS

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

The repeating droughts are damaging crops and pastures and are starving animals - pushing countless people in the Horn of Africa to the edge of extreme appetite.

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

With practically half Kenya's 47 counties declared to have a major lack of rain, humanitarian companies are cautioning of increased hunger in the months ahead.

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

"Well below-average crop production, poor animals body conditions, and increased regional food prices are expected, which will reduce bad homes' access to food."

In Kitui's Kyuso location, the indications are already evident.

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

Villagers suffer travelling longer distances - sometimes more than 10 km (6 miles) with their donkeys loaded with empty jerry cans in search of water.

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

BATTLING DROUGHT WITH BIODIESEL

But not all Kitui's farmers are stressed.

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

Neighbouring farmers unite to invest in 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 upon the size of the pump.

The farmers make a preliminary payment, then pay interest-free monthly instalments until the total is paid off. They purchase 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 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 village, 40 km (25 miles) from Kitui town.

CIRCULAR ECONOMY

Other farmers point to the plan as a major advantage in helping enhance their output.

"The instalment scheme is great. Most farmers do not 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 excellent which implies we can settle the expense of the pump gradually in little amounts, and have money left over to pay the school costs."

Zaynagro's effort is still in its early phases, with couple of farmers having actually paid back the full cost of the pumps.

But such biofuel plans are promising since they create 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 design - user friendly, robust technology, guaranteed supply of biodiesel integrated with a pay-as-you-go scheme - could assist amaze rural Africa, he stated.

"There is a mosaic of sustainable energy choices on the planet. The key problem is evaluating ideas and techniques in a collaborative fashion," said Sanyal.

"Other cotton ginning factories in the region need to attempt and gain from this experiment. Financial organizations should begin explore loans to groups of farmers. International donors and financiers 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, property rights and environment change. Visit http://news.trust.org)