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 informed he might irrigate his drought-hit crops more inexpensively, cleanly and efficiently utilizing 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!" chuckled Mathoka, bending down to inspect the watermelons on his 10-acre (four-hectare) shared plot in Ituri village in Kenya's southeast Kitui county.

"But it works," he stated, walking over to a nearby tree and plucking a large green pawpaw. "Irrigation with this biodiesel water pump has helped me get greater yields, particularly throughout dry spell durations."

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

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

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

That suggests that as well as being cleaner and cheaper than routine 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 profitable crops-for-fuel - exacerbating food scarcities.

"Our biodiesel originates from squashing cotton seeds left over as waste after ginning - the process of separating the seeds from raw cotton," said Taher Zavery, handling director of Zaynagro Industries Ltd, the Kitui-based company 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, offer it to the United Nations to run a few of their buses - and likewise to local farmers for irrigation."

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

DRY RIVER BEDS

Climate change is taking a toll across east Africa and increasingly unpredictable weather is becoming commonplace in nations such as Kenya, Somalia, Uganda and Ethiopia, leading to lower rainfall.

The repeating droughts are destroying crops and pastures and are starving animals - pressing countless individuals in the Horn of Africa to the verge of extreme appetite.

The variety of Kenyans in requirement of food help in March rose by almost 70 percent over a duration of eight months to 1.1 million, largely due to bad rains, according to government figures.

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

"Only light rainfall is forecast through June ... and this is not expected to minimize drought in affected locations 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 regional food rates are expected, which will decrease bad households' access to food."

In Kitui's Kyuso location, the signs are already obvious.

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

Villagers grumble of travelling longer distances - in some cases more than 10 km (6 miles) with their donkeys packed with empty jerry cans searching for water.

Small-scale farmers, many of whom are dependent on rain-fed farming, discuss plans to offer their goats to make ends satisfy 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 burden of reliance on the weather condition - and buying watering systems powered by Zaynagro's cotton seed biodiesel through a pay-as-you-go scheme introduced more than three years ago.

Neighbouring farmers band together to buy 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 an initial payment, then pay interest-free month-to-month instalments 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, stated the biodiesel pump allowed him to water 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 three months. With the biodiesel pump, I can make 45,000 shillings," stated 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 advantage in helping enhance their output.

"The instalment plan is great. Most farmers don't have the cash 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 indicates we can pay off the cost of the pump slowly in little amounts, and have money left over to pay the school costs."

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

But such biofuel schemes are promising since they produce a circular economy by turning waste to biofuel for profit, Sanyal, senior associate for Clean Energy Finance at the World Resources Institute.

The simplicity of the model - easy-to-use, robust innovation, guaranteed 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 options in the world. The key issue is checking ideas and techniques in a collective fashion," stated Sanyal.

"Other cotton ginning factories in the region should attempt and find out from this experiment. Financial institutions should begin try out 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, females's and LGBT+ rights, human trafficking, property rights and environment change. Visit http://news.trust.org)