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 irrigate his drought-hit crops more cheaply, easily and effectively 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 check the watermelons on his 10-acre (four-hectare) shared plot in Ituri village 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 helped me get higher yields, specifically throughout dry spell periods."

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

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

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

That means that as well as being cleaner and more affordable than regular fuel, it is more sustainable than other biofuels due to the fact that no additional land is required to produce it.

From Brazil to Indonesia, the rush to cultivate biofuel crops has driven forest communities off their land and pushed farmers to change from crops-for-food to more successful crops-for-fuel - exacerbating food scarcities.

"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 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 local farmers for irrigation."

More than 1,200 farmers in Kitui have actually so far bought biodiesel pumps for watering as part of an effort released by Zaynagro in 2015, said Zavery.

DRY RIVER BEDS

Climate modification is taking a toll throughout east Africa and progressively unpredictable weather condition is ending up being commonplace in nations such as Kenya, Somalia, Uganda and Ethiopia, resulting in lower rainfall.

The recurring droughts are ruining crops and pastures and are starving animals - pushing countless people in the Horn of Africa to the brink of severe cravings.

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

With nearly half Kenya's 47 counties stated to have a severe scarcity of rain, humanitarian firms are alerting of increased appetite in the months ahead.

"Only light rains is forecast 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 local food rates are prepared for, which will decrease bad households' access to food."

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

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

Villagers experience travelling longer ranges - in some cases more than 10 km (6 miles) with their donkeys packed with empty in search of water.

Small-scale farmers, most of whom are dependent on rain-fed farming, go over strategies to offer their goats to make ends satisfy 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 burden of reliance on the weather - and investing in watering systems powered by Zaynagro's cotton seed biodiesel through a pay-as-you-go scheme launched more than three years earlier.

Neighbouring farmers band together to buy the irrigation system - which consists of the biodiesel pump, 12 metres of pipes 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 month-to-month instalments until the total is paid off. 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 part of his one-acre plot, where he grows a range of veggies 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," said Alex Babu Kitheka, standing near his plot in Ilangilo village, 40 km (25 miles) from Kitui town.

CIRCULAR ECONOMY

Other farmers indicate the plan as a major advantage in assisting improve their output.

"The instalment scheme is excellent. Most farmers do not 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 plan like this assists us a lot. Our yields are good which means we can settle the expense of the pump slowly in percentages, and have money left over to pay the school fees."

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

But such biofuel schemes are appealing since they create 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 simpleness of the model - easy-to-use, robust technology, guaranteed supply of biodiesel combined with a pay-as-you-go plan - might help energize rural Africa, he stated.

"There is a mosaic of sustainable energy options on the planet. The crucial problem is testing concepts and approaches in a collective fashion," said Sanyal.

"Other cotton ginning factories in the region ought to attempt and gain from this experiment. Financial institutions ought to start try out loans to groups of farmers. International donors and investors 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, ladies's and LGBT+ rights, human trafficking, property rights and climate modification. Visit http://news.trust.org)