Biochar
Sustainable biochar is a powerfully simple tool to fight global warming. This 2,000 year-old practice converts agricultural waste into a soil enhancer that can hold carbon, boost food security, and discourage deforestation. Sustainable biochar is one of the few technologies that is relatively inexpensive, widely applicable, and quickly scalable.A Letter from IBI Advisory Committee Member Ron Larson
The following letter is to urge your continued support for IBI through membership. For me, IBI is the most important biochar group to whom I can give technical and financial support. I see no organization better able to get us back to 350 ppm CO2 through utilization of biochar.
I have two main reasons why I support IBI. The first is through stoves. I first learned of biochar before there was an IBI – because I had been (and am still) active in advocating and promoting charcoal-making stoves. I was the first coordinator in 1995 of the internet discussion list called “stoves”. I was then and still remain interested only in getting the world away from charcoal-using stoves. It is both sad and encouraging that the same charcoal product can have both highly negative and highly positive global characteristics – for more than half of the world population. Click here to read the remainder of this letter.
Latest Developments in Biochar
Profile: Using Bamboo for Stoves in Uganda
Uganda is Africa’s second largest producer of coffee and has the largest agricultural sector in the East African region. However, soils in parts of the country are nutrient poor which can lead to poor harvests and potential food shortages. This poor soil translates into subsistence farmers having less income and looking towards other means for income generation.
To help create alternative sources of income for the population and spur new industry, the Uganda Industrial Research Institute (UIRI), which is the Ugandan Government's lead agency for industrialization and the country's main vehicle for implementing strategies and measures aimed at transforming industry in Uganda, created a bamboo program to train people in the production of consumer goods such as furniture, blinds, woven baskets, and other handicrafts. With the unused material left from these production activities, UIRI is training individuals to produce matchsticks, toothpicks, as well as a biochar feedstock. Bamboo is widely used in rural communities in western Uganda and is easily available throughout the area.
This idea was conceived when Mr. Julius Turyamwijuka, a product manager at the UIRI, met Mr. Robert Flanagan in 2010 at the China Bamboo Research Center (CBRC) where both had gone to conduct research in China. It was at this meeting that the two exchanged ideas on biochar production and the UIRI program was developed. Since June 2009, Turyamwijuka has been working on a bamboo/biochar research project with Flanagan—by developing a stove prototype that can utilize the unused bamboo by-product to produce biochar.
Photo: The stove has a Thermo electric generator in build which converts heat energy to electric energy. Thus an adapter can be connected to the outside environment through the primary holes.
Profile: Sustainable Biochar in the Pacific Northwest Region of the US
A commercial fisherman, organic farmer and inventor, John Miedema first came across biochar about five years ago when he was researching better ways to clean up effluent from a dairy manure digester. Miedema grew up around dairy farms and he remembers how the manure cesspools would foul the streams. He wanted to do things differently and he figured charcoal would work well as a filter and perhaps also serve as a substrate for beneficial microbes that would help retain nutrients. Researching “charcoal” and “manure,” he found that native Amazonians had discovered this technique thousands of years ahead of him.
Miedema quickly realized that biochar could not only make a dairy operation more sustainable, it could also help with climate change. The reality of climate change had come home to him years earlier when he was working as a commercial fisherman. “We started catching some really strange fish – I could see that the ocean was changing,” he said.
In 2009, Miedema started the Pacific Northwest Biochar group and organized a meeting at Oregon State University followed by a conference at the Pacific Northwest National Lab, which brought many researchers and biochar entrepreneurs together to share information and ideas.
Photo: John Miedema and his 100 pound per hour, biomass-powered biochar retort system installed at Thompson Timber Company in Philomath, Oregon, USA; courtesy of John Miedema
Using Biochar to Improve Soil Health and Leaf Production at Tea Plantations in Sri Lanka
Sri Lanka has a long history of tea production—starting with one small plantation 250 years ago in the country then known as Ceylon. Sri Lanka is now considered a world leader in growing tea. Dilmah Tea incorporated in the 1950s with the intent to move away from larger scale tea processing to focus on tea picked and packed at origin. Even with onsite picking and packaging on smaller scale farms, tea monoculture can leave a large environmental footprint. To offset some of the negative impacts on the land due to tea plantations, Dilmah tea started a side organization called Dilmah Conservation. Dilmah Conservation works with the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) as its main technical partner. The goal of Dilmah Conservation is “to assist in conserving the environment through interventions that at the same time serve humanitarian needs”.
Bio-Remediation through Biochar Use at Dilmah Tea Gardens
With the deteriorating soil conditions in many Sri Lankan tea plantations due to poor management practices, Dilmah Conservation believes that a Bio Remediation program will be a lifeline for the survival of the industry. This program is introducing techniques for tea plantations to reduce inputs (fertilizer and other chemicals) by at least 50% and increase the land productivity by at least 50%. The project was initiated by the IUCN Sri Lanka in 2008 in partnership with the Tea Research Institute of Sri Lanka (TRI). Subsequently, Dr. J.C. Krishnaratne of Dilmah Conservation has been leading this program to apply biochar at the Palmadulla field at Kahawatte and Nawalapitiya plantations—chosen for their different agronomic and climatic conditions.
With the deteriorating soil conditions in many Sri Lankan tea plantations due to poor management practices, Dilmah Conservation believes that a Bio Remediation program will be a lifeline for the survival of the industry. This program is introducing techniques for tea plantations to reduce inputs (fertilizer and other chemicals) by at least 50% and increase the land productivity by at least 50%. The project was initiated by the IUCN Sri Lanka in 2008 in partnership with the Tea Research Institute of Sri Lanka (TRI). Subsequently, Dr. J.C. Krishnaratne of Dilmah Conservation has been leading this program to apply biochar at the Palmadulla field at Kahawatte and Nawalapitiya plantations—chosen for their different agronomic and climatic conditions.
Photo: Increased shoot growth after biochar application, courtesy of Dilmah Tea
The Dilmah Conservation Sustainable Agriculture Research Center- DCSARC (Moratuwa)
ReplyDeleteAfter the first trials, the team decided to relocate the biochar research field trial station to Moratuwa MJF Center premises in order to conduct trials on a range of field crops and orchard crops with the objective to convince government authorities involved in agricultural activities that biochar is a viable option to reduce the dependence on chemical fertilizers. The team is also looking to study the effects of biochar to increase soil carbon sequestration. These trials are currently being set up and the team hopes to record data on them in the next 6 – 12 months.
If biochar can be shown to have a consistent beneficial effect on soil microbial populations, increased plant growth, and the ability of the soil to withstand drought, the tea industry in Sri Lanka can benefit greatly; not only with larger production but also in decreased chemical fertilizer use and improved soil health.
For more information on this work, please contact Asanka Abayakoon.