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By Nita Bhalla

KITUI, Kenya, June 6 (Thomson Reuters Foundation) - Kenyan farmer Abel Mutie Mathoka thought it must be a joke when he was informed he could irrigate his drought-hit crops more cheaply, easily and efficiently using a pump sustained by cotton waste.

"Who could believe it's possible to make a fuel better than diesel from cotton seeds? I didn't!" chuckled Mathoka, bending down to examine 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 big green pawpaw. "Irrigation with this biodiesel water pump has helped me get greater yields, specifically during dry spell periods."

Mathoka said his earnings had doubled in the two years he has been pumping water using biodiesel, which is both more effective and 20 shillings ($0.20) per litre more affordable than regular diesel.

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

Unlike the majority of 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 procedure.

That suggests that as well as being cleaner and less expensive than routine fuel, it is more sustainable than other biofuels because no additional land is required 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 successful crops-for-fuel - worsening food lacks.

"Our biodiesel originates from crushing 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 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 a few of their buses - and also to local farmers for watering."

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

DRY RIVER BEDS

Climate change is taking a toll across east Africa and significantly irregular weather condition is becoming commonplace in countries such as Kenya, Somalia, Uganda and Ethiopia, resulting in lower rains.

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

The variety of Kenyans in requirement of food help in March surged by nearly 70 percent over a duration of 8 months to 1.1 million, mostly due to poor rains, according to government figures.

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

"Only light rainfall is forecast through June ... and this is not expected to relieve drought in affected areas of Kenya and Somalia," stated the Famine Early Warning Systems Network in its newest report.

"Well below-average crop production, bad livestock body conditions, and increased local food prices are anticipated, which will decrease bad households' access to food."

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

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

Villagers experience travelling longer distances - often more than 10 km (6 miles) with their donkeys loaded with empty jerry cans in search of water.

Small-scale farmers, many of whom are reliant on rain-fed agriculture, discuss strategies to sell their goats to make ends meet if the harvest is bad.

BATTLING DROUGHT WITH BIODIESEL

But not all Kitui's farmers are worried.

A small however growing number are shedding their problem of dependence on the weather - and investing in watering systems powered by Zaynagro's cotton seed biodiesel through a pay-as-you-go scheme released more than three years earlier.

Neighbouring farmers band together to invest in the irrigation system - that includes the biodiesel pump, 12 metres of pipes 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 paid off. They purchase the biodiesel to run the pumps from Zaynagro at 80 shillings a litre.

Farmer Alex Babu Kitheka, 39, said the biodiesel pump him to irrigate a bigger portion of his one-acre plot, where he grows a variety 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 earn 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 indicate the plan as a major benefit in helping improve their output.

"The instalment scheme is excellent. 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 implies we can pay off the expense of the pump gradually in small amounts, and have money left over to pay the school costs."

Zaynagro's effort is still in its early phases, with couple of farmers having repaid the complete expense of the pumps.

But such biofuel plans are promising because they develop a circular economy by turning waste to biofuel for profit, stated Sanjoy Sanyal, senior partner for Clean Energy Finance at the World Resources Institute.

The simpleness of the design - easy-to-use, robust innovation, 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 in the world. The essential concern is evaluating ideas and methods in a collective style," said Sanyal.

"Other cotton ginning factories in the region need to attempt and find out from this experiment. Banks need to start exploring with 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 climate change. Visit http://news.trust.org)