Reversing Climate Change S3E40: PlantVillage is working to scale biochar in Africa–w/ Dr. David Hughes
PlantVillage won the Carbon XPRIZE milestone award in 2022, and was awarded one million dollars. It aims to lift 200 million African farming families out of poverty. They are working to capture and sell a billion tonnes of carbon per year using biochar sequestration by integrating trees with crops on farms and using lumber for biochar.
So what exactly is happening on the ground with biochar? And can we solve today's problems with the mindset that helped create them?
In today's Reversing Climate Change podcast, Dr. David Hughes, the Huck Chair in Global Food Security at Penn State University and Director of USAID Innovation Lab on Current and Emerging Threats to Crops, Founder of PlantVillage & Carbon4Good, describes how this program avoids middlemen and gets farmers paid directly for making biochar, how biochar improves soil health and provides additional income, and how the technique represents both climate adaptation, and mitigation.
David also goes on to fit biochar and soil health into the broader context of the global climate fight, international economics, and climate justice.
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