• Reference: P-Z1-C00-006
• Approval date: 04/11/2009
• Start date: 24/11/2009
• Appraisal Date: 19/01/2009
• Status: OngoingOnGo
• Implementing Agency: ADAPEL Amédé Bopolo Daki
• Location: DEMOCRATIC REPUBLIC OF CONGO

The project aims to phase out slash-and-burn farming by transitioning to a slash-and-char system that improves the quasi-infertile tropical soils by amending them with biochar. Biochar is a carbon-rich product obtained from the pyrolysis of biomass, which, by its micro porous and physico-chemical nature, improves sequestered into soils, soil fertility can be maintained, crop yields can be increased, and the slash-and-burn cycle can be short-circuited.

When biochar is sequestered in soils, it not only maintains soil fertility, it also constitutes a stable, easily measurable and extremely permanent carbon sink that lasts much longer than any other form of carbon sink. Therefore it becomes possible to approach the (voluntary) carbon market to obtain carbon credits, with a competitive advantage. These credits help to make the project self-financing in the future.

Moreover, the production of biochar from crop residues co-generates renewable energy in a low-cost manner, which benefits rural communities and reduces their dependency on firewood. This energy is far less costly than any other type of decentralized renewable or fossil energy feasible for use in this area.

The biochar-system is thus capable of halting four key drivers of deforestation simultaneously: 1. low agricultural productivity in slash-and-burn systems, caused by the rapid depletion of nutrients from the tropical problem soils; 2. food insecurity and poverty amongst the rural communities living at the forest margin (a sub-cause, resulting from the low agricultural productivity); 3.energy poverty and the inefficient utilization of wood as fuel; and 4. Climate change. The project reduces carbon emissions in a direct way by sequestering biochar permanently in soils, and indirectly by avoiding deforestation in a substantial manner.

The project partners will work with 200 very poor families who practice slash-and-burn farming in the region of Pimu, Equator Province (DRCongo) - an ecoregion with biodiversity-rich pristine forest. These rural communities, located in around 10 villages, will produce and add biochar to their farm fields. The soils in question are nutrient-poor, acid, highly-weathered oxisols and acrisols which normally do not allow for continued agricultural production. The project partners will research the agronomic effects of the biochar intervention, and investigate how it slows down the slash-and-burn tempo.

The pilot project aims to demonstrate the feasibility of the biochar concept, so that it can be replicated in other farming communities at the forest frontier. To achieve this, the partners introduce three implementation bundles, which, together, generate an integrated synergy: 1. a 'farming bundle' which offers the farmers access to key inputs like quality seed and mineral fertilizer, and basic knowledge about integrated soil management with biochar at its core. This bundle drastically improves crop yields and helps phase out hunger and food insecurity in an immediate but temporary way; 2. a 'carbon bundle' which helps the farmers approach the (voluntary) carbon market; their carbon sequestration effort (biochar in soils) will yield funds that allow the project to become self-financing in the future, and which improves their incomes. The 'carbon bundle' consolidates the gains made under the 'farming bundle'. It helps make food and income security permanent. 3. An 'energy bundle' aimed at optimizing the co-generation of biochar and energy. In a first phase, this co-production will be based on low-tech, low-emissions slow pyrolysis kilns; in a second phase, a more advanced technology capable of efficiently co-generating biochar, electricity and useful heat will be introduced. This bundle effectively ends energy poverty and eliminates the unsustainable dependence on inefficiently used firewood.

The beneficiaries of the project are the farmers living at the forest frontier in Pimu, and by extension similar rural communities in the Congo Basin, who will profit from the implementation routines developed during this project. The objectives of the project are directly related to the stated objectives of the CBFF: slowing the rate of deforestation by phasing out slash-and-burn farming; the eradication of the hunger season and the resulting food insecurity and poverty which plagues the rural communities in question; the fight against climate change, by establishing extremely permanent carbon sinks, by avoiding emissions from deforestation, and by eliminating the inefficient use of wood as a fuel for burning on open fires.

The 'super-objective' is the creation of the conditions needed to facilitate a sustainable form of rural living at the tropical forest margin, by transforming modernist modes of production into postmodernist modes. That is: a transition from a relationship with natural resources based on depleting natural stocks(soils, biomass, nutrients) to a more sustainable relation based on regenerative natural cycles

The primary objective: eliminating or slowing down the slash-and-burn cycle, the depletion of soils, and the resulting low agricultural production which perpetuates hunger and poverty

The government of the DRC is gradually developing a national policy that is tending towards the valorization of the ecosystem services provided by its large forest resource. It is an active partner in negotiations and policy work on REDD/AD and other approaches towards forest conservation in light of climate change, as well as an active partner in international and intergovernmental organizations aimed at crafting joint policies and strategies on this front. It is beginning to explicitly take into account civil society's role in designing (and benefiting from) these policies.

Even though official policy development documents in the DRC are scarce, we keep up to date by tapping into public information channels that directly link to ongoing policy work. A recent "Atelier" on "models and mechanisms for the alternative financement of the sustainable exploitation of the DRC's forest resources" (Ministry of Environment, Conservation and Tourism, Dec. 2008), lists the national government's priorities: (1) tapping into global carbon markets (post-Kyoto: REDD/AD, and the voluntary market); (2) designing funding mechanisms for ecosystem services that go beyond carbon cycling; (3) involving civil society in order to develop community-based forest and natural resource management; (4) establishing a fiduciary fund for the finance and maintenance of existing forest conservation areas. Our project links up with the first three of these national priorities in a direct way.

On a regional and provincial level, the objectives and policy work are much less developed, and reflect national objectives.

ADAPEL, the principal organization involved in this project, has experience with (literally) translating national and regional policies on natural resource management and legislation into information accessible to communities and organizations on the ground. In a unique project, ADAPEL, translated the DRC's new Forest Code into the local languages of the communities it works with; disseminated this information, and helped organize structures to aid its interpretation. This is the first time people on the ground received and were encouraged to digest national policy on this matter in their maternal language, instead of the language of the State (see the project described in Part 3 Implementation - 19. Previous Project Implementation Experience). Thus ADAPEL plays an active role as a civil society organization, forming a critical interface between government and communities on the ground.

The project aims to short-circuit the slash-and-burn cycle by improving the key characteristics of the soils used by farming communities at the tropical forest frontier. Agricultural pressures on the pristine forest are mainly the result of the low fertility of the oxisols in the region, forcing farmers to continue to rely on shifting cultivation. To summarize, the low soil fertility is the result of physical, chemical and biological characteristics of these highly weathered soils: a high acidity, low levels of soil organic matter (SOM), a weak cation exchange capacity, a low microbial activity (weak immobilization and mineralization of nutrients), a low nutrient-retention capacity, permanent leaching of nutrients due to the frequent tropical rains, a strong presence of newly formed aluminium products (causing aluminium toxicity in crops), and a low capacity to retain moisture. These characteristics generally result in a rapid decline in crop yields. After a few years already, nutrients have been depleted from the soil, and farmers are forced to take a new plot of land into production, which they obtain by cutting and burning a patch of forest. Basic crops like cassava, maize and groundnut commonly see yield declines of 50 to 80% after only two to three years of cultivation on such a poor soil.

The traditional slash-and-burn system is based on leaving a depleted soil as fallow, so that it can regenerate. This regeneration period takes around 20 to 30 years, after which the land can be taken back into production. However, today, this traditional cycle is no longer sustainable: socio-economic and demographic factors have shortened the fallow period, which results in a continuous decline of soil fertility, and, as a consequence, accelerated deforestation.

The introduction of mineral fertilizers in this context is largely futile, because nutrients are leached out rapidly from the soil. W hat is more; the extremely poor farmers in the region do not have the financial means to acquire the quantities of fertilizers needed to increase crop yields under these circumstances.

Thus, the low fertility of the soils and the farmer's incapacity to produce a crop surplus, puts a break on sustainable development, causes food insecurity, and perpetuates a situation of generalized poverty. The utilization of biochar radically improves the key characteristics of the poor soils, and thus allows for a solution to these problems. Biochar becomes, in our project, the basis for a more sustainable form of agriculture, which slows the destruction of the forest, and eliminates the intertwined problems of food insecurity, energy poverty and climate change

The project works with 200 families of subsistence farmers, living in villages at the margins of the forest. During and after the biochar intervention, these villages will benefit (1) from much higher crop yields for basic crops (cassava, maize, beans, groundnuts, and others) and from much improved soil fertility which allows them to continue crop production on the same farm fields for longer periods of time; (2) thus from improved food security; (3) because biochar is produced (in the first phase) in a simple and efficient manner in devices that double as cooking stoves, the households will benefit from a more efficient use of biomass for cooking; (4) the production of char in these stoves, lessens the problem of indoor air pollution and associated health problems (pulmonary diseases) which mainly affect women and children; (5) because biochar is produced from crop residues and because the process generates more useful energy than that obtained in traditional open fires, the households will require less firewood; this has gender benefits because it is the women and sometimes children who are responsible for gathering this wood; (6) because biochar constitutes a stable and permanent carbon sink, the project will generate carbon credits; the bulk of the profits of the sale of these credits will be returned to the farmers, which increases their incomes in a substantial way.

The project is located in a region where farm soils are the oxisols typical for the humid tropics. If the project demonstrates the feasibility of the biochar-concept, the soil improvement technique and its integrated socio-economic benefits can be replicated relatively rapidly amongst similar rural communities living and working at the forest margins in the Congo Basin.

The participating farmers in this project are grouped and represented by ADAPEL, and have been consulted on the feasibility of the project. The farmers and their families will be consulted again at the start and during the implementation of the project. ADAPEL already collaborates with and informs the communities in question on a daily basis, in other projects.

The Biochar Fund will play the role of technical, organizational and entrepreneurial partner for this project. Its personnel have expertise in the key fields required to make this project a success: natural resource management in the tropics, agroforestry, and social anthropology. Dr Steiner for his part will act as scientific advisor. He is widely recognized as being the leading researcher on biochar in tropical ecoregion.

WADJA Patrice Kadjo - CBFF

Finance source	Amount
Co-financier	UAC 314,638
Delta	UAC 1
Total	UAC 314,637