Improving Agriculture
Biochar can improve almost any soil, can be a valuable feed additive for animal health and reduced emissions, and can help farmers reduce methane emissions and contamination from animal agriculture.
Biochar Use in Soils
When agricultural waste is converted into biochar, communities can boost food security, discourage deforestation, and preserve cropland diversity. The powerful soil health enhancer can store carbon while simultaneously increasing soil fertility — and smallholders around the world have been implementing biochar into their practices. Areas with low rainfall or nutrient-poor soils will most likely see the largest impact from the addition of biochar.
Research is now confirming biochar’s soil benefits that include:
Biochar and Terra Preta Soils
Biochar production is modeled after a process begun thousands of years ago in the Amazon Basin, where islands of rich, fertile soils called terra preta (“dark earth”) were created by Indigenous people.
Anthropologists speculate that cooking fires and kitchen middens, along with deliberately placing charcoal in soil, resulted in soils with high fertility and carbon content. These soils continue to store carbon today, while remaining so nutrient rich they have been dug up and sold as potting soil in Brazilian markets.
Rural and Developing Country Applications
In areas with severely depleted soils, scarce organic resources, and inadequate water supplies, sustainable biochar systems offer a solution to reverse soil degradation while creating sustainable food and fuel production.
Much of the developing economy country-specific biochar work that IBI is tracking is from micro scale (biochar cookstoves) to smaller scale (village-level systems). Low-cost, small-scale biochar production units can produce biochar to build gardens, bolster agricultural and forest productivity, and provide thermal energy for cooking and drying grain. Biochar also discourages deforestation in developing areas by making existing croplands more fertile for longer periods of time. With the addition of an engine or turbine, biochar production can produce kinetic energy for grinding grain or making electricity in areas that do not have access to an energy grid or system.
Photo by Von Wong
Biochar and Soil Biology
Decades of international research have shown that biochar stimulates the activity of a variety of important soil microorganisms, and it can greatly affect the microbiological properties of soils. The pores in biochar provide a suitable habitat for many microorganisms by protecting them from predators and dry conditions while also providing many of their diverse carbon, energy, and mineral nutrient needs.
Public domain via climatevisuals.org
Biochar and Increased Crop Yields
Field trials across the world have been conducted using biochar to enhance crop yields. Most show positive results when biochar was applied to field soils and nutrients were managed appropriately. Because biochar attracts and holds soil nutrients, it also potentially reduces the need for fertilizer amendments.