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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 water his drought-hit crops more inexpensively, easily and efficiently utilizing a pump sustained by cotton waste.

"Who could think it's possible to make a fuel better than diesel from cotton seeds? I didn't!" chuckled 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 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, especially throughout drought durations."

Mathoka stated his profits had actually doubled in the 2 years he has been pumping water using biodiesel, which is both more effective and 20 shillings ($0.20) per litre cheaper than regular diesel.

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

Unlike many 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 process.

That suggests that in addition to being cleaner and more affordable 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 actually driven forest neighborhoods off their land and pressed farmers to switch from crops-for-food to more successful crops-for-fuel - worsening food scarcities.

"Our biodiesel comes from crushing 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, sell it to the United Nations to run a few of their buses - and also to local farmers for irrigation."

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

DRY RIVER BEDS

Climate change is taking a toll throughout east Africa and increasingly erratic weather condition is becoming commonplace in nations such as Kenya, Somalia, Uganda and Ethiopia, resulting in .

The repeating droughts are destroying crops and pastures and are starving animals - pushing millions of individuals in the Horn of Africa to the brink of extreme cravings.

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

With almost half Kenya's 47 counties stated to have a major shortage of rain, humanitarian firms are cautioning of increased appetite in the months ahead.

"Only light rains is forecast through June ... and this is not anticipated to reduce drought 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 livestock body conditions, and increased regional food prices are anticipated, which will lower bad households' access to food."

In Kitui's Kyuso area, the signs are already apparent.

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

Villagers suffer 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, go over plans to offer their goats to make ends fulfill if the harvest is poor.

BATTLING DROUGHT WITH BIODIESEL

But not all Kitui's farmers are stressed.

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

Neighbouring farmers band together to buy 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 month-to-month instalments until the overall 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 permitted him to irrigate a bigger 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 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 plan as a significant advantage in assisting improve their output.

"The instalment plan is good. Most farmers don't have the cash 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 helps us a lot. Our yields are excellent which means we can settle the cost of the pump gradually in little amounts, and have cash left over to pay the school fees."

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

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

The simplicity of the design - user friendly, robust technology, assured supply of biodiesel combined with a pay-as-you-go scheme - might help amaze rural Africa, he said.

"There is a mosaic of sustainable energy alternatives on the planet. The essential problem is testing concepts and techniques in a collective fashion," stated Sanyal.

"Other cotton ginning factories in the area ought to attempt and find out from this experiment. Banks need to start explore 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, ladies's and LGBT+ rights, human trafficking, property rights and environment modification. Visit http://news.trust.org)