Dr Michael Shafer's work with biochar from his 'WarmHeart' base in northern Thailand is well reported here (
see WarmHeart tag). Michael is kicking off a 5-part report focused on crop residue burning. Below is his announcement on this to the yahoo international biochar discussion group. It is a highly relevant read for those of us interested in solving
regional haze issues.
"I
live in North Thailand where smoke from burning corn and rice fields
blocks the sun a couple of months a year. Burning wheat straw smoke
closes Delhi every year, too.
Because
most of the farmers who burn are poor and small, collecting their crop
waste for central processing is uneconomical and their fields are too
small, too steep, too rocky to plow, even if they could afford a
tractor.
They
are so poor, however, that converting their crop waste to biochar makes
lots of sense. Establishing village-scale social enterprises to process
local biochar into value added products is also not only appealing to
farmers but a replicable way to solve the crop waste burning problem
where it starts - in small farmers' fields.
This
is the first of a five part series in which I make the case for a
small-scale biochar social enterprise business model for addressing the
problem. The remaining four will appear over the next few weeks.
I would welcome any comments, suggestions, corrections or criticisms."
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Dr. D. Michael Shafer
Founder and Director, Warm Heart
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| 61 M.8 T.Maepang A.Phrao 50190 Chiang Mai Thailand |
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