Biochar and Food & Energy Security

As the population increases, so does the need for food and energy. This is why food and energy production must also be increased. Increasing food production is closely related to the quality and quantity of land. However, although the quantity of land is very large, its quality tends to decline so that plant productivity automatically also decreases. The decline in land quality or land damage occurs on very large areas of land up to millions of hectares. With the area of ​​sub-optimal and degraded lands reaching hundreds of millions of hectares consisting of 122.1 million hectares of dry land; 8 million hectares of post-mining land; 24.3 million hectares of critical land; a total of around 154.4 million ha, it can be said that the potential loss of food products also reaches millions of tons. Meanwhile, damaged land will be further damaged if no repair efforts are made. Efforts to upgrade or improve the quality of this land should be an important priority in efforts to achieve food and energy security.

Biochar application is a solution for improving these lands. Raw materials for biochar production are also very abundant, including dry palm oil EFB of around 30 million tons/year, bagasse of 2 million tons/year, corn cobs of 5 million tons/year, cassava stalks of 3 million tons/year, waste wood of 50 million tons/year, rice husks of 15 million tons/year, cocoa shells and so on. With the application of biochar, agricultural productivity can increase by an average of 20% or even up to 100%. If applied on a macro or national scale, say with a 20% increase in production, for example, rice production will increase to 36 million tons/year from the previous 30 million tons/year, corn will increase to 18 million tons/year from the previous 15 million tons/year, crude palm oil or CPO to 60 million tons/year from the previous 50 million tons/year. This will save land use so that the opening of forest land for food crops and (bio)energy such as food estates may not be necessary or at least slow it down. But why until now has biochar not received attention and been used as a solution?

In addition, biochar production with pyrolysis will also produce a number of by-products that can be used for energy applications or others, as in the diagram above. Many agro-industries require drying in their production processes, so this is an additional advantage of using pyrolysis technology for biochar production. While from the environmental aspect, biochar is also a carbon sequestration so that it is a climate solution and can get carbon credit. Likewise in waste management, because the raw material for biochar is biomass waste from agriculture, plantations and forestry, even from organic waste, the pyrolysis and biochar business is also a solution to this problem.

Increasing Food Agriculture Productivity: Biochar Application or Forest Clearing for Food Estate?

Indonesia currently ranks 69th out of 113 countries in 2022 in food security and this is lower than Malaysia and Vietnam with indicator points below the global average. This condition is concerning considering that Indonesia was once self-sufficient in food before and even the price of rice in Indonesia is the most expensive in ASEAN. Efforts to maintain food productivity are indeed a challenge, let alone increasing it. Along with increasing population growth, the need for food automatically increases. The condition of declining food production and productivity is related to a number of factors including land conversion to non-agricultural land, and soil / land damage. A number of regulations have been made to stem the rate of decline in food productivity due to these two things.

Regarding land damage, repair efforts need to be made so that agricultural productivity increases. It is estimated that the area of ​​land damage that occurs is very large with a high level of severity. This requires gradual and sustainable repair efforts with various strategies including improving farming patterns and even a number of incentives. Only with these efforts can the agricultural sector as a source of food be repaired or if not, the damage to agricultural land will get worse so that repair efforts will be more difficult.

Biochar application or forest clearing for food estate ?
Biochar application will be able to repair damaged lands. In addition to being a slow-release fertilizer agent so that fertilizer use becomes efficient and does not pollute the environment, increasing soil pH, increasing soil organic carbon and increasing agricultural productivity, biochar will also help overcome the management of agricultural waste that has so far polluted the environment. The increase in agricultural productivity from the use of biochar is on average around 20%. If Indonesia's current rice production is around 31 million tons per year, then the application of biochar will increase total rice production to 37.2 million tons (an increase of 6.2 million tons). With an average rice production per hectare of 6 tons, the increase of 6.2 million tons is equivalent to increasing the area of ​​agricultural land by 1.03 million hectares. Even damaged land from post-mining can be reclaimed and rehabilitated with the application of biochar, with the land area also reaching millions of hectares. This is certainly better than clearing new forest land for food estates because of its environmental impact. 

As the human population grows, the need for food and energy will continue to increase. Indonesia's population in 2045 is estimated to reach 319 million people and the world's population in 2050 is approaching 10 billion people. The need and urgency of biochar to improve soil quality is increasing. Tens of millions of hectares of all Indonesian acidic soils, which are classified as dry land acidic soils, need to be improved with biochar. This means that the business potential reaches billions of dollars or trillions of rupiah. Meanwhile, rice imports in 2024 are targeted to reach 3.6 million tons (as a buffer), a large amount. With an annual rice requirement of around 31 million tons, the contribution of imported rice reaches more than 10%.

Biochar in addition to repairing soil damage so that it increases its fertility which ultimately increases agricultural productivity is also part of the climate solution, namely by means of carbon sequestration. Biochar applied to the soil will last hundreds or even thousands years, and does not decompose. This is another advantageous factor for biochar producers, namely getting carbon credits. The quality of biochar will determine the acquisition or price of the carbon credit, so that the raw materials of biochar and its production process are affected. The price of carbon credits is increasing so that it is increasingly attractive and also the carbon credit market continues to grow.

Damage to land or agricultural land that occurs is mostly caused by excessive use of chemical fertilizers. If the use of chemical fertilizers can be reduced in dosage or with sufficient use, there will be improvements in land quality. Even if chemical fertilizers are gradually reduced in dosage and organic fertilizers / compost are increasingly added so that in the end chemical fertilizers are not used at all, soil fertility will be optimal as well as agricultural productivity.

The photo from here

Of course, this requires time and continuous effort. Livestock must also be encouraged so that compost / organic fertilizer can also be produced sufficiently from the processing of livestock manure. Integrated farming with livestock is the best solution for improving agricultural land with biochar, especially increasing the efficiency of fertilization. If the above can be implemented properly, then forest clearing for food estate land can also be slowed down / held back by considering all aspects comprehensively so that it is not a short-term solution that tends to be forced, and rushed because of the regime's image efforts even at a cost of hundreds of trillions.

Biochar For Date Palm Plantations

Biochar is increasingly being used as a soil amendment with the aim of improving the physical, chemical and biological properties of the soil, and reducing the concentration of greenhouse gases from the atmosphere. In date palm plantations which are mostly planted in dry and sandy areas, the use of biochar will especially increase the ability of water and nutrients holding capacity, meaning that the evaporation of groundwater can also be reduced and nutrient loss for date palms can also be reduced. This of course is very beneficial for the date palm tree. Waste from date palm plantations such as midribs, seeds and leaves can be used as raw material for the biochar. The impact or positive results of the use of biochar have been reported from enormous of studies and experiments. These results are improvements in the physical, chemical and biological properties of the soil which ultimately result in the quality and productivity of the fruit yield.

Every year, it is estimated that each date palm tree produces 33 kg of green waste or 20 kg of dry biomass waste. Currently, it is estimated that date palms around the world reach 120 million trees with a biomass waste potential of 4 billion tonnes of green waste or 2.4 billion dry and can be converted into biochar into 800 million tonnes of biochar. The 10 largest date producing countries are Egypt, Iran, Saudi Arabia, Algeria, Iraq, Pakistan, Sudan, South Sudan, Oman and the United Arab Emirates. The use of modern pyrolysis equipment for processing biomass waste into biochar, also produces excess energy for heat or electricity production which can be used for various purposes. Location of date palm plantations in rural areas can use electricity or store this energy for other purposes such as cooking. The energy storage can be done with large or small tanks for the needs of residents in that location. By utilizing the excess energy from the pyrolysis process, environmental damage such as illegal logging can be minimized. Dry and arid are areas with high evaporation and low rainfall, and such areas as these occupy 41% of the land surface area on earth. Currently nearly 900 million people inhabit this area.

Improved soil quality will result in higher crop productivity. The better the quality of the soil that can be cultivated, the better the productivity will be. Biochar will enrich soil organic carbon which has important roles, including reducing plant nutrient loss, increasing soil aggregation, reducing soil erosion, and increasing water holding capacity. Each plant has its own characteristics regarding the growing medium and environmental condition. Improving the quality of the soil will certainly increase the productivity of dates and even increase the quality of the fruit.

Sago Waste For Sawdust Charcoal Briquette

Sago forests are spread mainly in the regions of Indonesia, Malaysia and the Philippines with Indonesia, especially Papua as the owner of the largest sago forest with a forest area of ​​1.2 million hectares or almost 50% of the world's area. Although sago plantations have begun to be made, most of them are still in the form of forests. In areas that have made sago plantations, the processing of sago products produced is also better. Sago has a very important role in food security, especially in areas such as Maluku and Papua. People in these areas eat sago as their staple food. Food security according to Law No. 7 of 1996 and PP 68 of 2002 is a condition of fulfilling food for households which is reflected in the availability of sufficient food, both in quantity and quality, safe, equitable and affordable. In addition, sago trees also have environmental benefits such as erosion, water absorption and greening. Food conversion from sago to rice will encourage the conversion of sago forest to rice fields and that also eliminates the environmental benefits of sago forests. The loss of environmental benefits from sago forests also means inviting potential natural disasters. It should not be necessary to convert food from sago to rice for these areas but instead develop and preserve the potential of sago trees in these areas and is even possible as an export commodity. Based on a number of analyzes, the use of sago from local locations will be able to be self-sufficient in the area, for example in Maluku and Papua.

The use of sago is mainly for carbohydrate production as a staple food. Sago starch is taken from the extracted part of the sago stem so that the sago starch and residue are separated. In a number of areas the process of extracting sago starch is still very simple, namely the sago stem taken from the rich part of the sago, reduced in size for example by grated and mixed with water and then squeezed by hand and sago starch taken out then as the sediment. With the help of mechanical tools the extraction process can be easier and faster. The sago production process produces a number of biomass wastes that actually have economic potential. The waste of sago bark and sago residue is a potential raw material for the production of sawdust briquette charcoal. At present most of the waste is still untapped and only pollutes the environment.

The production of sawdust charcoal briquette from sago waste is almost the same as the production of sawdust charcoal briquette from raw materials of wood waste in general. The sago bark needs to be reduced in size (size reduction) to the size of sawdust while the residue is not necessary because the particle size is relatively small. The next stage is drying with a dryer and the most widely used today is the rotary (drum) dryer. After the material is dry enough, it is then temporarily stored and then fed to the screw extruder and produced like sawdust briquette. At this stage the production process stages are very similar to wood pellet production, the difference is for the production of sawdust briquette using a screw extruder, while for wood pellets with pelletizers. To become sawdust charcoal briquette, the sawdust briquette is then carbonised in a carbonization furnace which takes around 10 days.

Why not to wood pellet production? Reasonable question of it. Although the sago waste can be used for wood pellet production, the high chlorine content makes it less acceptable, especially for the export market where the end user is a (pulverized) power plant. If wood pellets from sago waste are intended for the domestic market for use in a number of SMEs it is also not a problem. While the absorption of the domestic market is still small, then some wood pellet producers are still a priority for the export market with the requirements of technical specifications quite stringent. Based on these conditions the production of sawdust charcoal briquette is more an option, and besides that sawdust charcoal briquette production equipment is almost 100% made locally.