[Terrapreta] Biochar included in U.S. Farm Bill

[lou gold]

Very good. # million USD per year is a pittance but it is an important
start. We should tip our cups to this one.

hugs,  lou

On Mon, May 12, 2008 at 1:51 PM, Biopact <biopact at biopact.com> wrote:

>  Hi,
> on May 8, the U.S. Senate-House conference committee on the new Farm Bill
> announced its final farm bill conference agreement. The bill includes $3
> million per year funding for biochar research, development & demonstration.
>
> I thought this was good news, and wrote a short press release on it (see
> attachment), to be published by the Biochar Fund.
>
> Comments and corrections are welcome. Please don't distribute this text
> yet.
>
> Best, Lorenzo
>
> Press release:
>
>
>
> PRESS RELEASE (EMBARGOED UNTIL MAY 12, 2008 – 11.00 PM CET)
>
>
> *Biochar Fund Welcomes Inclusion of Biochar Research into U.S. Farm Bill*
>
> (BRUSSSELS - May 12, 2008) The U.S. Senate-House conference committee on
> the new Farm Bill, recently (May 8) announced its final farm bill conference
> agreement. The agreement will lead to a formal conference report, which will
> then be passed by the Senate and House before being sent to the White House.
>
> The House Bill contains a Senate amendment aimed at funding biochar
> research, development, and demonstration (RD&D) over the next four years.
> US$ 3 million will be granted to a variety of projects for each fiscal year,
> from 2008 through 2012. The Biochar Fund welcomes this initiative and
> recognizes that U.S. scientists are playing a leading role in exploring the
> many potential environmental benefits of the technology.
>
> Section 9012 of the Farm Bill's Title IX on Energy contains the amendment
> the purpose of which is to support RD&D of "biochar as a coproduct of
> bioenergy production, as a soil enhancement practice, and as a carbon
> management strategy." Biochar is defined as biomass-derived black carbon
> that is added to soil to improve soil fertility, nutrient retention, and
> carbon content.
>
> By producing energy from renewable biomass via pyrolysis and by adding the
> biochar generated during this process to (poor) agricultural soils, a truly
> carbon-negative energy technology can emerge. This integrated farming and
> bioenergy concept succeeds in actively removing carbon dioxide from the
> atmosphere. Several biochar trials have also shown a strong reduction in
> more potent greenhouse gas emissions from cropland, notably nitrous oxide
> and methane. That is why scientists believe it can play a crucial role in
> mitigating climate change.
>
> In order to study these effects more in depth, the amendment suggests the
> U.S. Secretary of Agriculture to award competitive grants to eligible
> entities to support biochar RD&D projects on multiple scales, including
> laboratory research and field trials, and biochar systems on a single farm
> scale, local community scale, and agricultural cooperative scale.
>
> Eligible proposals include activities that involve:
>
> (1) the installation and use of biochar production systems, including
> pyrolysis and thermocombustion systems, and the integration of biochar
> production with bioenergy and bioproducts production;
>
> (2) the study of agronomic effects of biochar usage in soils, including
> plant growth and yield effects for different application rates and soil
> types, and implications for water and fertilizer needs;
>
> (3) biochar characterization, including analysis of physical properties,
> chemical structure, product consistency and quality, and the impacts of
> those properties on the soil-conditioning effects of biochar in different
> soil types;
>
> (4) the study of effects of the use of biochar on the carbon content of
> soils, with an emphasis on the potential for biochar applications to
> sequester carbon;
>
> (5) the study of effects of biochar on greenhouse gas emissions relating
> to crop production, including nitrous oxide and carbon dioxide emissions
> from cropland;
>
> (6) the study of the integration of renewable energy and bioenergy
> production with biochar production;
>
> (7) the study of the economics of biochar production and use, including
> considerations of feedstock competition, synergies of coproduction with
> bioenergy, the value of soil enhancements, and the value of soil carbon
> sequestration.
>
> Biochar can be added to most of the world's agricultural soils. But
> research is needed in order to understand how biochar works in different
> soil types and on different scales. The Biochar Fund specifically focuses on
> its application to nutrient-poor, degraded and highly weathered problem
> soils in the tropics, amongst farming communities living at the forest
> frontier. There, biochar potentially results in the greatest environmental
> and social benefits: vastly improved crop yields that allow poor farmers to
> improve food security, reduced deforestation, biodiversity loss and
> emissions from cropland, the maintenance of soil fertility for long
> periods of time, and the establishment of stable, permanent and easily
> manageable carbon sinks.
>
> Commenting on the inclusion of biochar into the U.S. Farm Bill, Laurens
> Rademakers, President of the Biochar Fund, said "the growing recognition of
> biochar as a key technology in the climate fight is good news. Biochar can
> transform agriculture and prepare it for the challenges of the 21stcentuy. I would now urge America's counterparts in the EU and elsewhere to
> take similar steps to promote research into the concept. The potential of
> biochar is global, but for it to be applied on a large enough scale,
> research results from different parts of the world must first be compared.
> On this basis, the international community can then include biochar's
> ability to sequester carbon in formal mechanisms aimed at reducing global
> greenhouse gas emissions."
>
> *About the Biochar Fund*
>
> The Biochar Fund was established in 2008 as a social profit organisation
> with the aim to generate a synergy capable of solving some of the world's
> most pressing issues simultaneously: hunger, deforestation, energy poverty
> and climate change. The fund works with poor farmers at the tropical forest
> frontier, where biochar generated in small-scale pyrolysis plants can turn a
> destructive "slash-and-burn" cycle into a sustainable farming concept that
> boosts crop yields, limits pressures on forests, provides access to clean,
> renewable and decentralised electricity, and combats climate change by
> establishing stable carbon sinks.
>
> To the Biochar Fund: http://www.biocharfund.com
>
> To the U.S. Senate-House Conference Committee on the new Farm Bill:
> http://agriculture.senate.gov/
>
>
>
>
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>



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