The Center on Integrated Rural Development for Asia and the Pacific (CIRDAP) and Bangladesh Biochar Initiative (BBI) agreed to work together to promote the household level production in the 15 member countries; Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Fiji, India, Indonesia, Iran, Lao PDR, Malaysia, Myanmar, Nepal, Pakistan, Philippines, Sri Lanka, Thailand, Vietnam using Biochar in farming with the aim of improving the livelihood of the rural poor. It is evident that Biochar and its co-products are directly or indirectly related to twelve of the seventeen SDGs set by global leaders. Biochar can directly contribute to the SDGs on (i) No poverty, (ii) Zero Hunger, (iii) Good Health and Well-being, (iv) Clean Water and Sanitation, and (v) Climate Action which are directly affecting the lives of the people in the CIRDAP member countries.
BBI has been promoting the production and use of Biochar since 2013 to make carbon negative communities in Bangladesh. Through continued research, BBI has invented an improved cooking system for rural women to cook household meals without compromising their cooking practice. As rural communities have long been using biomass as fuel, BBI steered them to use pyrolysis technology which captures carbon and produces Biochar as a residue after cooking in the rural kitchen. This Biochar, in turn, is used in the crop field to sequester them for years. Through this process, a village becomes carbon negative without significant investment in the process. As a result, the rural poor are encouraged to contribute to minimizing the Green House Gas emission (GHG).
Rural women can make additional money by selling their surplus Biochar to local markets which are likely to improve their lives substantially. Through the capacity building of their communities they build improved cooking system with local raw materials, sell them to rural women at lower prices. Using them the rural women produce Biochar and sell them to the market and thus they create a carbon negative market place in the local communities. Widespread use of this system in a large number of communities would certainly bring a greater impact on getting carbon-negative villages over the years and keep the ongoing fight for climate change even stronger.
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