A charred turkey homage to biochar’s sherpas, shamans & scientists.

When the biochar industry does finally take off, it will be in no small part due to biochar’s Sherpas, Shamans and Scientists. The Sherpas include not only those with enough foresight and fortitude (not to mention cash) to invest in the early life cycle of biochar production, but also those willing to endlessly carry the biochar flag hither and yon. The Shamons include a select few individuals that somehow seem to be uncommonly tapped into nature’s mysteries and intuitively understand how biochar best interacts with it. The Scientists include an increasing number of researchers from an ever expanding set of academic disciplines. No longer just basic and applied agronomy, academics involved in engineering, waste management, renewable energies and more are focusing on biochar and the number of peer reviewed articles has been increasing exponentially which is exciting and daunting all at the same time.

Though these three disparate groups of biochar supporters rarely get together to break bread, eat turkey or talk biochar around the same table, conference or even on the same social media forum, I’m still thankful to know many different individuals in each camp. They each have their own perspective and role to play in launching the biochar soil’ution.