Biochar is charcoal created by pyrolysis of biomass. Biochar is a way for carbon to be drawn from the atmosphere and is a solution to reducing the global impact of farming and in reducing the impact from all agricultural waste—so some say. The Biochar Fund has announced that it and its Congolese partner ADAPEL will receive 300,000 Francs or about 420,000 USD from the Congo Basin Forest Fund to start a biochar program in ten villages in the Democratic Republic of the Congo.
The people of Biochar believe that implementing this program in Sub-Saharan Africa will help solve problems such as low crop yields and hunger among farmers, deforestation due to slash and burn methods, energy poverty and lack of access to renewable energy, and climate change. They believe this method will improve and increase soil fertility.
My understanding of this is that they plan to cut down most if not all of the trees in that Sub-Saharan area, burn them and create biochar, use that "char" to replenish and fertilize the soil so farmers can use that rich soil to grow produce (keeping in mind that biochar that is created is only 1/3 of the original fuel), use the bio-oil left over from the biochar as a renewable energy resource, and eventually let nature to take its course and allow for reforestation to happen.
I understand the idea and the benefits. My questions are, why not implement this in a less violent part of the Congo? Will implementing this program here be beneficial for what's going on there or will it spark up more controversy and violence? Also, why does 2/3 of Sub-Saharan forestry need to be burned down just to produce the small amount of biochar? I understand the benefits of the biochar, but to me it doesn't seem right to burn down most of the forest. If anything I think that reforestation won't be able to happen because they will need to constantly burn down more trees to supply the growing population of the villages, due to the new technology. I am not a biologist though so I may be wrong, this is just my personal opinion.
Please feel free to post comments about biochar and the pros and cons of it as well as any other information about biochar. Below is a video about the process of biochar from the re:char perspective:
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BioChar
Roqouis -
I disagree with your statement "My understanding of this is that they plan to cut down most if not all of the trees in that Sub-Saharan area." BioChar is created from biomass waste products. This would be the leftover plant after harvest.
If I am reading the right press release, http://biocharfund.org/index2.php?option... , It does mention a "slash-and-char" method for burning down trees rather than a "slash-and-burn" method. Because the soil is so poor, farmers must continually change locations of their fields. This is the main culprit in the deforestation. The BioChar fund will put BioChar back into the poor soil, thus making it fertile. My understanding is that if the farmer DOES need to move, then the trees destroyed in the process can be turned into char, rather than just burned.
A farmer in the United States named Josh Frye makes BioChar out of chicken poop (Google search Josh Frye) and using it in his fields.
A good video explaining BioChar is linked below.
http://turningpoints.iomaire.com/index.p...