By Nita Bhalla

KITUI, Kenya, June 6 (Thomson Reuters Foundation) - Kenyan farmer Abel Mutie Mathoka believed it should be a joke when he was told he could water his drought-hit crops more cheaply, cleanly and effectively using 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, 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 nearby tree and plucking a large green pawpaw. "Irrigation with this biodiesel water pump has assisted me get greater yields, specifically during drought periods."

Mathoka stated 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 good news for the world.

Unlike a lot 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 implies that in addition to being cleaner and cheaper than routine fuel, it is more sustainable than other biofuels since no additional land is required to produce it.

From Brazil to Indonesia, the rush to cultivate biofuel crops has driven forest neighborhoods off their land and pressed farmers to change from crops-for-food to more lucrative crops-for-fuel - intensifying food scarcities.

"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 company producing the biodiesel.

"We started producing and utilizing 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 a few of their buses - and likewise to regional farmers for irrigation."

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

DRY RIVER BEDS

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

The recurring droughts are destroying crops and pastures and are starving animals - pushing millions of people in the Horn of Africa to the verge of extreme cravings.

The variety of Kenyans in need of food aid in March rose by practically 70 percent over a duration of eight months to 1.1 million, mostly due to bad rains, according to federal government figures.

With nearly half Kenya's 47 counties declared to have a severe lack of rain, humanitarian agencies are warning of increased appetite in the months ahead.

"Only light rains is anticipated through June ... and this is not expected to alleviate 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 prepared for, which will reduce poor homes' access to food."

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

Rivers, water pans and dams are drying up as a result of the extended drought.

Villagers suffer trekking longer distances - often more than 10 km (6 miles) with their donkeys loaded with empty jerry cans searching for water.

Small-scale farmers, many of whom depend on rain-fed farming, discuss strategies to offer their goats to make ends meet if the harvest is bad.

BATTLING DROUGHT WITH BIODIESEL

But not all Kitui's farmers are worried.

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

Neighbouring farmers unite to purchase the watering system - that includes the biodiesel pump, 12 metres of pipelines and 10 litres of biodiesel - at costs beginning from 32,000 shillings, depending upon the size of the pump.

The farmers make a preliminary payment, then pay interest-free regular monthly instalments up until the overall is paid off. They buy the biodiesel to run the pumps from Zaynagro at 80 shillings a litre.

Farmer Alex Babu Kitheka, 39, said the biodiesel pump enabled him to water a larger part 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," said Alex Babu Kitheka, standing near his plot in Ilangilo town, 40 km (25 miles) from Kitui town.

CIRCULAR ECONOMY

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

"The instalment scheme is good. Most farmers do not have the cash and can not easily get a loan to purchase a pump like this," said 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 indicates we can pay off the expense of the pump slowly in little quantities, and have cash left over to pay the school costs."

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

But such biofuel plans are promising due to the fact that they create a circular economy by turning waste to biofuel for revenue, said Sanjoy Sanyal, senior associate for Clean Energy Finance at the World Resources Institute.

The simpleness of the model - user friendly, robust technology, guaranteed supply of biodiesel integrated with a pay-as-you-go scheme - could help amaze rural Africa, he said.

"There is a mosaic of sustainable energy choices on the planet. The crucial concern is checking concepts and techniques in a collaborative style," stated Sanyal.

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