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 told he could irrigate his drought-hit crops more inexpensively, cleanly 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 inspect 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 neighboring tree and plucking a large green pawpaw. "Irrigation with this biodiesel water pump has assisted me get higher yields, particularly throughout dry spell periods."

Mathoka said his incomes had actually doubled in the 2 years he has been pumping water utilizing 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 good news for him - it is also good news for the world.

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

That indicates that in addition to being cleaner and cheaper than routine 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 driven forest neighborhoods off their land and pushed farmers to change from crops-for-food to more rewarding crops-for-fuel - intensifying food lacks.

"Our biodiesel comes from squashing cotton seeds left over as waste after ginning - the process of separating the seeds from raw cotton," stated Taher Zavery, managing director of Zaynagro Industries Ltd, the Kitui-based business producing the biodiesel.

"We began 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 watering."

More than 1,200 farmers in Kitui have actually so far invested in 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 increasingly unpredictable weather is ending up being commonplace in countries such as Kenya, Somalia, Uganda and Ethiopia, resulting in lower rainfall.

The repeating dry spells are destroying crops and pastures and are starving animals - pushing countless people in the Horn of Africa to the brink of extreme appetite.

The variety of Kenyans in requirement of food help in March surged 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 nearly half Kenya's 47 counties declared to have a major shortage of rain, humanitarian companies are cautioning of increased cravings in the months ahead.

"Only light rainfall is anticipated through June ... and this is not expected to reduce dry spell in affected locations of Kenya and Somalia," stated 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 anticipated, which will lower poor households' access to food."

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

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

Villagers experience travelling longer ranges - often 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, talk about strategies to sell their goats to make ends satisfy 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 burden of reliance on the weather - and purchasing irrigation systems powered by Zaynagro's cotton seed biodiesel through a pay-as-you-go scheme introduced more than three years earlier.

Neighbouring farmers unite to buy the watering system - which consists of the biodiesel pump, 12 metres of pipes 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 monthly instalments till the overall is . 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 larger portion of his one-acre plot, where he grows a range 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 village, 40 km (25 miles) from Kitui town.

CIRCULAR ECONOMY

Other farmers indicate the scheme as a major advantage in assisting improve their output.

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

"Having a plan like this assists us a lot. Our yields are great which means we can settle the cost of the pump gradually in small quantities, and have money left over to pay the school costs."

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

But such biofuel plans are appealing because they develop 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 - user friendly, robust innovation, guaranteed supply of biodiesel combined with a pay-as-you-go plan - could assist electrify rural Africa, he stated.

"There is a mosaic of sustainable energy options worldwide. The key issue is evaluating ideas and methods in a collaborative fashion," stated Sanyal.

"Other cotton ginning factories in the region need to attempt and gain from this experiment. Financial institutions should start exploring with 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, women's and LGBT+ rights, human trafficking, property rights and environment change. Visit http://news.trust.org)