Planboo - Malawi Bamboo Biochar

The project harvests bamboo to produce a biochar co-compost product. Malawi has confronted challenges such as soil degradation from extensive tobacco plantations and widespread poverty. The over-reliance on tobacco farming has led to deforestation, soil erosion, and nutrient depletion, exacerbating poverty and food insecurity in rural communities. The biochar initiative holds potential to restore degraded soils, reduce poverty, and promote sustainable agricultural practices in Malawi. Bamboo serves as an ideal biomass feedstock, offering fast growth, high carbon content, and ample availability, making it a renewable resource with carbon sequestration benefits, thus contributing to climate change mitigation.

Partnering with Klimate was a natural step for Planboo. From early conversations, it was clear they understood the challenges and importance of developing carbon removal projects in the tropics. Their commitment to offtake carbon credits is pivotal for the growth projects in a nascent industry.

Freddie Catlow
CEO

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A 2022 IPC report estimated that 5.4 million Malawians are on the brink of extreme hunger. This has been driven by growing global fertiliser prices, increased severe weather events, and extreme poverty, with 70% of the country’s 19 million people living below the world poverty line of $1.90/day. The biochar-enriched compost will help increase the water holding capacity of local soils, allowing them to build resilience to droughts and flooding.The compost is a mixture of bamboo biochar, ground peanut shells, chicken manure, and Kariba weed sourced from the local water dam. The project leads to local job opportunities.

• Hans-Peter Schmidt, Founder of European Biochar Certificate (EBC) - “Planboo developed a thorough and well-thought methodology to assess the establishment of long-term carbon sinks combined with sustainable, low-emission biochar production.”

Planboo is a value-driven team doing things a little differently. They have built their solution from the ground up, moving from Europe to live and work in the tropics to create long-lasting change for both people and planet. Their solution combines innovative technology and farming practices to bring real time data and tales of carbon transformation from the projects. By nurturing biochar projects in the tropics, they also aim to channel carbon finance to areas of the world affected most by climate crisis. This project, located in Malawi, works to utilise a regenerative model to grow bamboo that may be transformed into biochar.

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The goal is to work towards a more equal, more resilient future - Planboo views their biochar projects across the tropics as just a piece in the puzzle, yet a powerful tool towards systematic change. The company's belief is that great minds don’t think alike, and their vision is a world where where those differences are celebrated and used to tackle challenges in nuanced, inclusive ways - for people and for planet.

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