Agricultural activities produce large quantities of animal waste in the form of manure, which has increasingly been an issue of disposal. Additionally, the Lebanese economic crisis has had a devastating effect on agricultural practices and their prices, considering all fertilizers are being imported.
Our aim is to make a pyrolizer for local production of biochar on the farm. This pyrolizer will manage and safely dispose of animal manure while also utilizing it to make valuable Biochar. Manure derived biochar can hence be used as a sustainable and environmentally friendly soil amendment. Building soil organic matter in Lebanon, under our climatic conditions and farm practices, is not easy and this is one way to achieve this objective.
This is ideally targeted for orchard production farms but can also benefit all farmers. Our main goal behind this project is to make the Lebanese agricultural sector self-sufficient.
Challenges
Challenges
One of the main challenges to the pyrolizer setup is that it can only be used in batch processes- therefore incurring increased quality control, costs and employee downtime.
Furthermore, it would be challenging to scale up this pilot scale reactor and turn it into a commercial product that can be used by farmers. These farmers may also find it difficult to adapt to this agricultural novelty.
