"My
latest Book title "Biocharculture - Biochar for Environment and
Development" Published by MetaMeta, Netherlands. It took two years to
write covering a decade of my endeavour with biochar.
I am thankful to all the members in the e-groups for the valuable
insights, thanks also to the communities / farmers. This book is
declared as open Knowledge.. Available online the links are http://metameta.nl/ or http
Dr. N. Sai Bhaskar Reddy
Preface
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| Click here to download book |
A recent comprehensive review of co-optimizing solution for food, water and energy by the World Business Council for Sustainable Development1 found that we still have many cooptimizing options in hand, but it also means that we need to rejuvenate the way farming is done. Agriculture needs to be more precise. It needs to be better integrated in the landscapes that it is part of and it should be supporting rather than substituting natural processes.
It is in this regard that I am very happy to introduce this book on Biocharculture and also to acknowledge its unfailing energetic author, Sai Bhaskar Reddy. We are happy that much of his overall insights and first hand experiences have become available through this book.
Biocharculture falls very much in a vision of an agriculture that supports and makes use of natural growing mechanism. Biochar is charcoal that is used for other purposes than heating. It can be a byproduct or part of an entire production system.
Biochar scores on many fronts: it improves the capacity of the soil to retain moisture but also nutrients, such as nitrogen and phosphorus. It helps regulate soil temperature and contribute to climate change mitigation. It improves soil life. I still remember that Sai Bhaskar explained a tiny piece of charcoal to me as being a ‘skyscraper for millions of soil biota’. There is still a world to gain – by better understanding this miraculous microbial world and the way our soils and landscapes work and this book hopes to contribute and give practical suggestions and directions. Interesting in some parts of the world biochar is part of the production process where in other it is not. In other words we need to create new traditions and farming cultures, as this book very much argues."
Frank van Steenbergen
Director, MetaMeta
Dr Reddy also published a book on cooking stoves which is also available for download from:
http://
Understanding Stoves (pdf) and flash book
S. B. Nakka Reddy, 2012
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