While many of our neighbors burn most of the organic matter on their land we process everything we can into biochar and compost the rest. We use these as soil amendments and the biochar has the added advantage of sequestering carbon for thousands of years. It is pretty amazing stuff and our trees love it.
If you have heard of “terra preta” and how it was used historically in the Amazon by some of the best farmers of their time you already have some understanding of biochar. If not we would encourage you to do a bit of research or reach out to us. We are happy to share specifics with other farmers who are interested in learning what we are doing at Finca Chocolat to improve soil fertility, decrease air pollution and increase the amount of water our soils can retain – all good things for an agroforestry system by-the-way!
While biochar is great for the soil and our trees love it producing it is a thankless and hot job. We are grateful to our crew for rotating through our biochar production station as needed and truly appreciate the work they put in to make Finca Chocolat successful.
We process, quench, and crush our biochar and then either incorporate it into our compost if the processing and composting timeline aligns with setting up the nursery or our planting season. If it does not line up with that timeline we bag and store it as you see here and then will later either incorporate it into our compost or inoculate it with essential microorganisms. Once it is ready we add a bit to the base of each tree we plant at Finca Chocolat where it serves as a sponge for water retention and a home to beneficial organisms in the soil.
Below is our Kontiki kiln that we use to process our biochar. It is low-tech but often that is the best approach in rural Belize.
