Biochar Industry Convening 

May 2024 - USBI participated in an “industry convening” that focused on building the biochar industry in the United States. The event was held in Minneapolis April 29th and 30th and was hosted by the US Endowment for Forestry and Communities and Fountainworks (public impact advisors). Key biochar organizations, USDA NRCS and ARS, US Forest Service, and biochar producers participated.

The event highlighted the critical need to develop markets for physical biochar, supporting similar findings from the recently completed Global Biochar Market Survey. Based on these findings, USBI will focus on market development as our top priority in the years to come. We’re working to develop a framework for end-use market development that will feature collaboration with experts and practitioners in each enduse market to make sure we are hitting the mark. We'll also tackle demonstration projects, research and development, and guidance document development in collaboration with key end-use practitioners. Targeting key market conferences and events will be another key component of our strategy. Our initial end-use market targets will include biochar as a soil amendment, biochar-enhanced fertilizers, potting and horticultural growing media, concrete, stormwater, and others. 

During this "industry convening", we also highlighted the need to support policy that helps incentivize biochar's use in the private sector and by local, state, and federal government agencies, to simplify permitting for biochar facilities, to build technology neutral tax credits for carbon removal technologies, and more. United States Biochar Coalition's Maureen Walsh led the way in these discussions, and USBI is looking forward to future collaborations with this group. 

The event was well-received by all, and Fountainworks will be collaborating with USBI and the US Endowment to complete a report summarizing the event to be released in June.

This was covered in the May 2024 USBI Newsletter:
https://biochar-us.org/sites/default/files/blog/US%20Biochar%20Initiative%20May%202024%20Newsletter.pdf