Marking a Milestone
The Big News!
Biochar Life, PBC, (“Biochar Life”) an impact venture of Warm Heart Worldwide (“Warm Heart”) is pleased to announce the completion of their European Biochar Certification (“EBC”) standard for tropical farmer accreditation audit with the Ithaka Institute. Biochar Life is among the first organizations in the world to receive the new EBC “tropical farmer” accreditation.
It is now positioned to help smallholder (“SMH”) farmers throughout the world to reduce crop waste burning, slow climate change, clean the environment, improve public health and reduce their own poverty by selling carbon removal credits (c-sink credits) on global markets.
Warm Heart Worldwide in collaboration with the Ithaka Institute, Task.io, and Biochar Life has piloted a solution to train farmers in biochar production and use, instituted a verification process and built a blockchain-enabled platform and smartphone app that provides end-to-end tracking and puts money directly into the farmer’s hands!
With this certification smallholder farmers will now be able to tap into the huge Carbon Credit market.
“Smallholder farmers in the developing world have the capacity to contribute significantly to carbon removal efforts by converting crop residues, which today are often merely burned, into carbon sequestering biochar. With this capacity smallholder farmers in the developing world can tap into the fast-growing carbon removal markets, which will only motivate them to produce biochar and reduce in-field crop burning, as well as improve farmer livelihoods and enhance food security.” – International Biochar Initiative.
Read the full Press Release for more details
Sustainable Development Goals
Our news has a global impact and addresses these 4 SDG’s:
Balancing Act
The task at hand is to reduce the amount of C02 that we currently emit, plus we need to reduce the amount already in the atmosphere.
Every time a tree is cut down we lose a part of a carbon sink, which is why deforestation is so bad for our environment, huge carbon sinks are disappearing.
The goal is to capture and sequester carbon. Build carbon sinks.
It all boils down to a balancing act. And we have a solution that will help us achieve that goal.
Understanding the Importance of Biochar
Biochar Primer
What is biochar?
Biochar is a super charcoal made by heating any biomass – for example, corncob, husk or stalk, potato or soy hay, rice or wheat straw – without oxygen. All of the cellulose, lignin and other, non-carbon materials gasify and are burned away. What remains is pure carbon – 40% of the carbon originally contained in the biomass.
Is biochar something new?
No, in fact in Amazonia, a great agricultural civilization fertilized poor forest soils with terra preta, the first biochar, to feed tens of thousands of people.
Today, we are rediscovering the value of biochar as the world staggers under climate change, environmental degradation and human poverty.
How do you make biochar?
Biochar production is a simple process that anyone can do. Warm Heart has designed cheap and easy methods for converting biomass waste into biochar. The simplest and cheapest method is to dig a hole in the ground. You can also build a cheap biochar oven using an old oil drum, or build a trough.
Whichever method is used, the process is the same, biomass is burned with a lack of oxygen, turning the biomass in biochar, smoke free.
Why make biochar?
Field fires are often smoky, slow smolders burning the residue of crops containing fertilizers fortified with nitrogen and sulphur.
These generate large quantities of greenhouse gases (GHGs) such as methane and the NOxs (nitrous oxides) that are many times more warming than CO2. (Methane has a global warming potential (GWP) of 25, NOx 298!)
They also produce large quantities of smog precursors such as ammonia and the SOx (sulphur oxides) that react with sunlight to form smog. Finally, that smoke that blocks the sun is PM2.5 – particulate matter so small that it passes through the walls of the lungs into the bloodstream to wreak havoc throughout the body.
Problem with open field burning of crop waste
Why is it so valuable for farmers?
Climate change is threatening food security around the world. When farmers use Biochar as a soil amendment they will benefit from:
• Richer soil life
• Healthier soil
• Lower acidity
• Better water retention • Bigger yields
Solution for a healthier planet
Biochar is pure carbon. While farmers may benefit from using biochar to improve their soil, making biochar and returning it to the earth helps the environment.
When sequestered in the soil it creates a carbon sink. Carbon sinks help bring down the C02 levels that contribute to global warming.
Biochar Life utilizes carbon credits to finance the training of farmers to stop open field crop waste burning and instead create carbon sinks with biochar.
Biochar Trust is now Biochar Life
Task.io does a great job explaining how our project works.
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