ARTi Podcasts

Agricultural residue or agricultural waste is not waste, it’s an asset. Because of biochar it’s now valuable!

Biochar is a substance that resembles charcoal that is produced from biomass and is sustainably sourced from agricultural and forestry waste. These can be from corn stalks, hulls, wood chips and much more. Check out our blog on “What Materials Has ARTi Successfully Pyrolysed (Turned into biochar)” at the following (Link). But is it really “waste”? Are they only agricultural residues?

Firstly, due to the scale of our civilization and the growing human demands, there is more production of everything. This would for sure certainly include agriculturally grown food. More production means more waste, or unneeded materials from the process. That’s the nature of production.

Did you remember that potato plants have stalks and green leaves? The potato part we eat is just part of the root system in the soil. The stalks and leaves of potato plants for example have little use. Potato plants even generate flowers. Potato flowers, anyone?

The global potato industry is enormous, producing 376 million metric tons in 2021. (Potato News Today, Jan. 21st, 2023). This is humongous. So, there’s going to be a lot of unwanted biomasses generated.

Biochar both sequesters carbon and can be made from forest residues that when otherwise left unused become wildfire fuels. These two main benefits of biochar in addition to soil water retention and improved soil health make biochar an attractive consideration for wildfire mitigation.

It is always a great experience to get the chance to visit other organizations in Iowa where we are headquartered which are also working towards agricultural practices that make a positive impact. Practical Farmers of Iowa is one such association. Practical Farmers is located in Ames, IA, the town that also hosts Iowa State University, the Department of Energy’s Ames Laboratory and the USDA’s National Animal Disease Center. Their mission statement is “equipping farmers to build resilient farms and communities”. The organization was founded in 1985 to support information sharing between farmers working on moving their agricultural operations toward sustainability. We share their priorities.

All those spooky decaying things and the wiggly worms that live in them are all part of natural soil and help make the new plants grow. Biochar would have been decaying plant matter. Instead, as biochar it traps CO2 and aids soil structure. Soil is made up of minerals, soil organic matter, living organisms, gas, and water. Plant, animal, and microbial remains in various stages of decomposition make up soil organic matter. It's the most important indicator of soil quality. So, they may seem like dead and decaying gloom, but it is what makes the flowers bloom! When you add biochar to the soil mixture, with compost you make a nice dark mansion for them to live in.

ARTi and Iowa Women in Agriculture are both organizations native to the State of Iowa.

It makes perfect sense for us to meet and share perspectives. Plus, more and more initiatives are being put forward that seek to add the input of diverse groups. Iowa Women and Agriculture is one such group that ARTi will be working with.

ARTi team member and graphic designer Mechi (left) shows off biochar results to members of Iowa Women in Agriculture at their August 2022 conference.

Who Are the Iowa Women in Agriculture? Link to their website here.

The organization's heart center of women’s roles in farming has a foundation that goes back decades. Founding member, farmer, Iowa native and published author Cheryl Tevis got her M.A.in journalism before becoming managing editor of Successful Farming magazine (Link). During her time there she wrote on women’s viewpoints on agriculture as well as supporting the business side of farming and child safety on farms. Her acclaimed short story titled We Kill Too Many Farm Kids was published in 1989. See more information about Cheryl’s work with child safety on farms at this link.

Previous president of Iowa Women in Agriculture Deb Marcellus Schuler aslo has extensive farming and business experience.She is a partner with the farmland brokerage, management, and appraisal company Smith Land Service, Co. Deb has spent 14 years as the director of the Cass County Fair.

Iowa Women in Agriculture was established with the intention of assisting female farmers, landowners, and agribusiness professionals. The goal is to assist women in developing their knowledge, abilities, and connections within the community in order to help them reach their financial goals and give back to the agricultural community that is near and dear to them. A volunteer board of directors oversees the operation and plans and implements all elements of their services and programs, including the annual conference.

We have mentioned Cheryl and Deb, but all the other members have considerable experience in farming, business and in the numerous related fields that come into contact with agriculture. And, of course, all of them are women.

2022 Iowa Women in Agriculture Conference

Central to IWiA’s work is their annual conference. ARTi had a chance to join them at their 17th Annual, August 4, 2022 event with the title Women Power Up: Countdown to Success!

This year the conference highlighted a pre-event tour of the Cedar Covered Bridge  (Link), a genuine bridge of Madison County referring to the 1996 romance movie as well as a tour of the Winterset Cidery (Link). The main event featured talks from Dr. Lisa Schulte Moore, professor of Natural Resources and Ecology at Iowa State University, Angie Treptow from Farm Credit Services, Rena Striegel on Best Practices for Family Farm Relationships and lots more. To see the full event list, go here to this (Link).

ARTi is not only a leading-edge environmental technology company focused on biochar and pyrolysis reactors. Our team members also contribute to bioprocess economics and technical feasibility research. Two of our ARTi colleagues have published a paper studying the feasibility of uses for residual biomass. Specifically, for the Ecuadorian market, and for one possible industrial, chemical product from unused biomass, acetic acid. Diego Guevara-Fernandez and Juan Proano-Aviles published in 2021 Techno-economic analysis of the production of acetic acid via thermochemical processing of residual woody biomass in Ecuador, Biofuels, Bioprod. Bioref. (2021). Link to the paper here.

Great news in green technology development and biochar implementation from ARTi! ARTi designed and built a water filter full of biochar made for filtration aided by a solar-powered pump which brings water from a lake into the filter. This type of filter system is called a carbon bed filter. The pump is able to run constantly powered by the sunshine. ARTi conducted many research trials to bring this unit into operation. The main features of the filter unit is to address detrimental nutrients and organic materials in the lake which the unit is able to remove. ARTi analyzed the pond water before the filter was installed and further water samples will be taken every six months to see how much the solar powered biochar filter is reducing the nutrients and organic materials in the water. This is also to see how much of the nutrients and organics are being collected in the biochar over time. The biochar will be replaced, and contaminants monitored every 6 months.

As we know, climate change is due to too much carbon in our atmosphere.

But carbon is not our enemy, it’s the building block of life.

Every living thing is made of carbon.

During the last centuries we have been burning too much fossil fuels and clearing our forests. Even the way we manage lands and do agriculture is releasing even more carbon into the atmosphere, destroying our soils and disrupting the natural balance.

Of course, we need to stop burning fossil carbon and change to sustainable practices, but the big question is:

The answer is literally under our feet: in the soil!

We’ve been studying Biochar for almost a decade and we know its huge potential to reduce CO2 concentrations in a natural, long-term and more effective way.

It’´s on us whether we stop waiting and start working to slow climate change!

TOGETHER we can do much more than reducing Carbon Dioxide, we can also restore our soils!

Small changes that make a difference!

These shirts are Carbon Neutral… what does it mean?

Through the production of Biochar, a Carbon Negative technology, we sequester the same amount of CO2 emissions, so for each purchase of a t-shirt, Biochar is donated to green projects!

Buying textiles without heating the planet is possible!

Wildfires were and are still common in the North American Prairie lands, and the flowers and grasses that make up this amazing ecosystem evolved as a result. For those that live in prairie regions, controlled prairie fires are a sign of spring.  Non-native plants are burned away during each burn, giving prairie species more nutrients and space to develop. Because prairie plants have deep roots and develop from a place underground, they can withstand fires. In prairie restoration, a prescribed burn is essential. As this is a burn process, there is resulting carbon.