Farmers are increasingly turning to organic manure as alternative to chemical fertilisers to mitigate rising costs, cushion soil fertility and increase yields.
Linet Achieng,35, is on such small-scale farmer who has mastered new skills of using the natural waste in farming to enhance soil fertility, improve plant growth, and to provide her crops with nutrition.
Rather than use synthetic fertiliser to boost her soil health, she has resorted to innovate wastes from the planted crops turning them into an organic fertiliser to boost her banana farming yields.
Over the years, synthetic fertilisers have been relied upon by most farmers using it to improve the productivity of soils, part of which leaches into the environment and emits greenhouse gasses (GHG).
But Achieng today in an era where farmers are moving from a linear to a circular economy, never uses fertiliser bought from the shops to apply in her three-acre banana farm.
When the Business Hub, visited her in Angola Village in Kisumu East Constituency, we found the young farmer, tilling her banana plantation and applying Biochar ¬– a carbon-rich solid product produced from the pyrolysis of biomass residues – instead of synthetic fertiliser.
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According to Achieng, biochar is gaining popularity for soil modification purposes, improving crop yields as well as for carbon sequestration,’’ she explains.
Biochar has been found to have a positive effect on soil health and plant yields, while keeping the health of soil intact since it increases yields without synthetic fertilisers or soil additives.
“The application of biochar on soil helps improve soil fertility, reduces the quantities of inorganic fertiliser needed for farming and holds gigatons of carbon for improved porosity,” Achieng.
When used in growing crops, the natural carbon cycles will be naturally restored, especially carbon cycles, thus boosting food poduction because carbon is well regulated. Capturing this atmospheric carbon can lessen the rising greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, mostly from the agricultural sector with huge amounts of biochar. It can be used to store carbon
Achieng who is a chemical engineer, says the technology works by providing a carbon sink on agricultural lands, thus fixing carbon in the soil and absorbing net carbon from the atmosphere.
“Most agricultural activities release greenhouse gas emissions into the soil due to the mechanization of the processes during farming process,’’ she reveals.
Because of higher process temperatures, the chemical structure of biomass changes and content of hydrogen, nitrogen and oxygen in biochar is significantly decreased in relation to carbon.
The biomasses available for biochar production in her farm is, empty fruit bunches of bananas from her plantations which offers one of the largest concentrations of biomass. “The banana yields have multiplied. We currently produce abut seven bunches or stacks of banana in one month up from the initial two we used to produce five years ago,’’ she says
Production in a month and in a year has now multiplied. She can produce up to 20 bunches at times. Each sell at Sh750, meaning she can easily make Sh22,500 in a month in a rural area. But it is not only in banana alone. She also uses the same biochar technology in growing vegetables in her kitchen garden and no longer buys the fruits from the market.
Coming at a time when climate change crisis, is a problem, Achieng noted that novel and effective solutions are required in order to continue food production for the Country’s increasing population.
Her neighbours are today also interested in the biochar system and she is helping them get the right process of doing it, as one of her ways of giving back to the community. Working closely, with Ken Grow, a female driven organisation, involved in women empowerment, project in Kisumu East, Achieng is taking farming a noth higher using natural methods.
She reveals that the benefits of growing vegetables and fruits using biochar is enormous, adding that biochar helped in increasing water retention and nutrient flow to the crops or banana roots.
“Biochar is a charcoal-like product made when biomass is slow-burned in the absence of oxygen in a contained system. This technology of burning is called pyrolysis,’’ Achieng explains. The challenge, she explains is that some farmers think that all wastes can be turned into biochar.
“No. The wastes must be purely natural and must be sieved from other non-biodegradable substances, which cannot easily decompose,’’ Achieng explained.