By Nita Bhalla

KITUI, Kenya, June 6 (Thomson Reuters Foundation) - Kenyan farmer Abel Mutie Mathoka thought it must be a joke when he was told he could water his drought-hit crops more inexpensively, cleanly and effectively 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, 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 drought 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 more affordable than regular diesel.

The biodiesel he is using is not simply good news for him - it is also good news for the planet.

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 process.

That implies that in addition to 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 driven forest neighborhoods off their land and pushed farmers to switch from crops-for-food to more successful 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 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 also to local farmers for irrigation."

More than 1,200 farmers in Kitui have so far invested in biodiesel pumps for irrigation as part of an initiative launched by Zaynagro in 2015, stated Zavery.

DRY RIVER BEDS

Climate change is taking a toll across east Africa and significantly erratic weather condition 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 - pressing millions of people in the Horn of Africa to the edge of severe 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 poor rains, according to federal government figures.

With nearly half Kenya's 47 counties stated to have a major lack of rain, humanitarian agencies are cautioning of increased cravings in the months ahead.

"Only light rainfall is anticipated through June ... and this is not anticipated to ease drought in affected locations of Kenya and Somalia," said the Famine Early Warning Systems Network in its most current report.

"Well below-average crop production, bad animals body conditions, and increased regional food prices are anticipated, which will minimize bad families' access to food."

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

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

Villagers complain of trekking longer distances - sometimes more than 10 km (6 miles) with their donkeys laden with empty jerry cans searching for water.

Small-scale farmers, most of whom depend on rain-fed farming, go over strategies to sell their goats to make ends fulfill if the harvest is poor.

BATTLING DROUGHT WITH BIODIESEL

But not all Kitui's farmers are fretted.

A little 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 plan launched more than three years earlier.

Neighbouring farmers unite to purchase the irrigation system - which includes the biodiesel pump, 12 metres of pipelines and 10 litres of biodiesel - at costs beginning with 32,000 shillings, depending on the size of the pump.

The farmers make a preliminary payment, then pay interest-free monthly 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 enabled him to water a bigger 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 3 months. With the biodiesel pump, I can make 45,000 shillings," stated Alex Babu Kitheka, standing near his plot in Ilangilo town, 40 km (25 miles) from Kitui town.

CIRCULAR ECONOMY

Other farmers point to the scheme as a major benefit in helping improve their output.

"The instalment scheme is great. Most farmers do not have the cash and can not quickly get a loan to purchase 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 good which implies we can settle the expense of the pump slowly in little quantities, and have cash left over to pay the school fees."

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

But such biofuel plans 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 simplicity of the model - user friendly, robust innovation, assured supply of biodiesel integrated with a pay-as-you-go plan - could assist electrify rural Africa, he stated.

"There is a mosaic of sustainable energy options worldwide. The crucial problem is checking ideas and methods in a collective style," stated Sanyal.

"Other cotton ginning factories in the area ought to try and gain from this experiment. Financial institutions must start try out 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, women's and LGBT+ rights, human trafficking, residential or commercial property rights and environment modification. Visit http://news.trust.org)