Biochar interested Warm Heart very early for its many, related virtues. Making biochar largely eliminates the emissions of CO2, smog precursors and PM 2.5 that accompany all other burning. In the soil it has near magical power to restore degraded soils and improve fertility in bad soil. As per pure carbon, Biochar is also an extremely efficient – and cheap- way to sequester carbon as a kilogram of buried biochar represents 3.6 of CO2 removed from the atmosphere.

It required several years of experimentation, however, before Warm Heart had all the ideals and tools necessary to confront crop waste burning, a major source of climate change gases, air pollution, bad public health and food insecurity.

In 2016 Warm Heart began testing organic fertiliser made from Biochar produced by local farmers. Ten farmers tested Biochar fertiliser against synthetic fertiliser in side-by-side paddies. The Biochar restored their soil, made their plants healthier - and increased their yields 10.8% over the synthetic fertiliser.

In 2017, Warm Heart paid farmers in Mae Chaem Thailand $86 USD per tonne to produce biochar in no-smoke 55 gallon drums. This replaced their practice of burning their waste corn cobs that make huge amounts of deadly smoke that contributed to the three month “smoke season” in Chaing Mai (Thailand’s 2nd biggest tourist destination city). Warm heart chose Mae Chaem to begin the public demonstration of how well poor farmers could deal with smoke using its simple barrel technology because Mae Chaem is the single largest source of smoke from corn waste in north Thailand.

Warm Heart’s sequestration of a total of 27.1 tonnes of biochar – 15.2 tonnes in Phrao district by 19 individual farmers and 11.9 tonnes in Mai Chaem by 5 individual farmers and the Mai Wak Village cooperative – is well documented by farmer, location and date of application (often as part of a field test). The 11.9 tonnes of biochar used in fertilizer in Mae Chaem was mixed to contain 10%, 20%, 30%, 40% and 50% biochar V. cow manure, pig pee, em and forest humus to test the relative importance of carbon v. organic matter in restoring degraded soils. As a result, the 11.9 tonnes of biochar made a very large amount of fertiliser.

Because the sequestration of carbon was so well documented, Warm Heart has been awarded 27.1 Chartons for the carbon buried during their pilot project even though it was not filmed at the time. Warm Heart is the 2nd entity to un-mine Chartons as the trading of Chartons increase, the verification of sequestration will become more stringent. In the future every farmer will have a separate carbonface profile with video of biochar production and their Chartons will be awarded separately.

Warm Heart is a grassroots, community development organisation serving the rural poor. We partner with communities to find environmentally, economically and socially sustainable solutions to community-identified needs. Warm Heart is nondenominational, non-discriminatory, nonpartisan, and follows the principles of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights in pursuit of the Sustainable Development Goals.

We started from nothing 10 years ago.

Today, 40 kids live in our Children’s Homes and attend local schools. We sponsor another 30 at a local, government boarding school, have 5 kids away at vocational-technical high schools and 15 at university.

Our Microenterprise Project provides jobs to three women’s cooperatives and we reinvest all profits in the Project.

We have trained hundreds of small farmers and in 2017 our biochar project was recognised with a World Energy Globe Award. Our work is now being adopted in Africa as well.

Our Wellness Program for the abandoned disabled and elderly provides weekly bathing, cleaning, cooking, errands and hospital transportation services.