Biochar is a 2,000 year-old practice to convert agricultural waste into a soil enhancer that can hold carbon, boost food security, and increase soil biodiversity, and discourage deforestation. While doing at the field can be harder, we tried to find possible alternatives.
In the processing of paddy into rice, normally the husks are a waste. Now, the mills have found a use for this waste - they use them as fuel to generate steam for boiling. The husks are fired within a chamber and come out as fine charcoal.
We enquired around and thanks to Mr.Ravanan, owner of Best Builders in Kumbakonam, we identified a rice mill that was happy to let us have the charcoal (our version of Biochar).
Getting it to the fields was easy, but distributing it was whole another story. The tractors got loaded with the ash right from the furnace - the ash at that point was fiery hot. So, we had to unload it outside the field. The mounds remained piping hot for almost 2-3 days.
Right around that time, we had some rains - which made the fields soggy. We could no longer get a loaded tractor trailer into the fields. :(
So, finally, we settled for the next best alternative - here's a video of how we distributed the biochar in our fields.
