Biochar, the Future of Sustainable Agriculture and Healthier Livestock Breeding

The Basna company is an important and active participant in the community of the Science-Technology Park of Cacak. It produces biochar, which, in addition to being produced in a way that entails a reduction of the emission of harmful gases with the greenhouse effect, is important to sustainable agriculture, livestock breeding, waste water treatment and various other industrial processes to a great extent. The use of biochar can pertain to a reduction of mineral fertilizers (N) in the agrarian sector, reduction of the use of antibiotics in livestock breeding, a more efficient approach to the treatment of waste waters, recovery of non-fertile soil, reduction of the use of water for irrigation and better management of organic waste.

In order to explain this kind of use “diversity”, we need to emphasize the specificity of the way biochar is produced and the consequent ecological advantages.

Firstly, the organic waste produced in everyday natural processes is the raw material for the production of biochar. During the production of the ordinary, wood coal, gases such as carbon-monoxide, hydrogen, methane and other, much more complex molecules (such as tar derivatives) are released from the biomass. Most of those gases are harmful and their impact on the global heating is larger than that of carbon-dioxide. Traditional furnaces for the production of wood coal release these gases into the atmosphere unfiltered.

Unlike the traditional methods, the technology of carbonization of biomass used by Basna takes into account the fact that such gases are combustible, which is why they are treated as energy source and are broken down into CO2 and H2O in the production process. In this production system, methane and other harmful gases are not released in the atmosphere, which is a very good solution ecologically. Another aspect of the production process is the sequestering of of CO2 from the atmosphere into the carbon structure, where it can remain in an unchanged state for up to several decades.

The carbon produced this way can be “enhanced” in the sense of various possibilities of its application. Agri-coal, for example, is a specially formulated product which increases the quality of the soil, the creation of humus, the capacity of keeping moisture in the soil, increases the yields and the resilience of the crops and allows for a reduced use of pesticides.

The livestock farming product “Karbohran” has a high capacity of absorption of toxins from animal feed and a measurable impact on the health of animals. It should be noted that the quality of this product has been confirmed in Europe, because the product meets the strict demands of the European Biochar Certificate (EBC).

In addition to its application in agriculture and livestock breeding, pure carbon can be used in filtering water (for example, in slaughterhouses with problematic lipids and proteins). Also, EBC biochar is used in the process of anaerobic digestion, where it increases the production of methane and with that the output of electiricity produced from biogas.

Although the company now operates with European countries, Vesna Baur, the director, announces an expansion of the capacities and making the product available in the domestic market.

Milica Banovic

Basna d.o.o. Atenica

Naučno tehnološki park Čačak

NS SEME Institut za ratarstvo i povrtarstvo Novi Sad

Institut za medicinska istraživanja Beograd

Basna doo

Science Technology Park Čačak

Karbohran

Vesna Baur

Institute of Field and Vegetable Crops Novi Sad

Institute of Medical Research Belgrade

biochar

use of biochar

sustainable agriculture

reduction of mineral fertilizers

reduction of use of antibiotics

antibiotics in agriculture

European Biochar Certificate

EBC