Training smallholder farmers how to turn crop waste into biochar, and then burying the biochar in the soil creates a carbon sink. This process replaces the current harmful practice of open field burning of crop waste. Smoke is eliminated from entering the atmosphere, cleaning our air, and helps bring down the C02 levels through carbon sequestration. Farmers benefit from improved soils for richer, healthier crops and reduced water consumption as local drought continues.
Smallholder farmers are struggling to grow food in poor soils, and on top of that, they are subject to extreme drought conditions brought on by global warming, threatening food security. The current method of removing crop waste is through open field burning. The goal is to train more farmers and end the current practice of open field burning of crop waste, a big contributor to global warming. Instead of smoke, farmers learn how to convert crop waste into biochar, which is pure carbon.
Funding for this project allows our trainers to travel to remote farming villages and train groups of 30 - 50 farmers, which are a majority of women, on how to make and use biochar. Learning the simple skill of converting their crop waste into biochar provides them with a free soil amendment that will bring their dead soils back to life. The biochar helps retain water, and the improved soil greatly impacts the health of the plants, providing more food from a bigger harvest of their crops.
Biochar can help cool the planet and reduce global warming. The many uses of biochar make it a valuable tool that can help improve lives everywhere. Malawi is just one location that is in the process of adapting biochar into sustainable farming practices. Warm Heart is also working with farmers in Thailand, Kenya, Tanzania, Uganda, and Ghana. Biochar provides quick improvement to local lives. The wider it spreads the higher impact it will have on the environment as a whole.
