Researchers calculate that alternative farming practices, if adopted in large numbers, could turn staple crop production into a carbon sink, increasing crop yields in China.
environment
February 14, 2023
Farmers harvesting straw in Anhui, China TPG/Getty Images
The production of staple crops such as wheat and maize in China could become a net carbon sink once farmers start applying biochar widely to their soils.
Instead of putting raw biomass like straw back into the soil at the end of the growing season, farmers can bring it into a pyrolysis plant. There, materials are heated in an oxygen-free chamber at very high temperatures to produce biochar, charcoal. Something like a carbon-rich solid.
Studies show that in addition to applying it to the soil…
