Small farmers around the globe produce a significant amount of gases that add to the problem of global warming.
It is an important problem in the complexity of factors that feed climate change.
The good news is this problem has a clear solution.
The answer is simple.
Show the small farmers a way to turn their crop waste into money.
Warm Heart has simplified the biochar process to digging a hole in the ground and covering with a piece of roof sheeting. This technique is easy to understand, and easy to teach others.
Our program in Africa is growing rapidly. Farmers are seeing the results and are extremely happy and grateful. It will grow exponentially as long as there is a fire kept under the kettle, so to speak.
Money needs to be invested through private donations to spread the training across the globe.
Africa is a prime example of what can be accomplished on a grass roots level and can be initiated anywhere around the globe where small farmer smoke is a problem. It all starts with a few teachers.
Teach the benefits of making and using biochar. End result – no more smoke from crop residue. Farmers benefit from bigger, better crops.
Help Malawi continue to grow and help reach out to communities globally to start their own Biochar Projects.
You can be part of the solution that is a win-win for everyone.
Note:
The Malawi Biochar Project started with one Catholic Nun looking for a solution to the hunger she saw all around her. She understood the positive impacts the farmers would receive from making biochar to feed to their fields, bringing the soil back to life and producing bigger, healthier crops. (read her story)
Using Warm Heart DIY videos, she built her first biochar oven.
She experimented and was amazed with the results. She discovered the biochar was also very good for her animals, visibly improving their health.
She began teaching all the farmers around her monastery, and asked each person she taught to share by teaching to another farmer. The farmers were excited to learn, but said they were too poor to buy the materials for a biochar oven. Warm Heart looked for ways to further simplify the process and hence, the trench method was developed.
Through the network she fostered, over 3000 farmers were trained in 2020.
Zomba, where the biochar training center is located is also home to the Zomba Central Prison, one of Malawi’s biggest.
Like all of Malawi’s prisons, Zomba Central feeds itself from large, prison gardens.The gardeners are “soon to be released” prisoners whose work is overseen by corrections officers.
In a remarkable turn of events, the Commissioner of Corrections has asked our team to gather corrections officers from every prison in the country at Zomba Central and train them to make biochar.
They will then teach the prisoner-gardeners who, when released, will take the knowledge to their villages in the furthest corners of the country.This is how we can make an impact on the environment while helping alleviate hunger.
The Warm Heart Malawi Biochar Project gave a training at the Zomba Campus of the College of Medical and Health Sciences. The training had to be capped at 100 public health nurses in training, but there will be more. These nurses will take the training to the villages they visit and spread the learning and benefits of biochar.
The Project leader also went to Kenya where she established 5 Training Centers and ran two successful trainings for 20 people at each to test the system. She was also invited to attend an international conference in Nairobi where she briefed world experts on her work in Malawi and rural Kenya.
This project continues to grow because of the positive results.
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