CBEN Monthly Meeting Recap: Insights from the Artisanal Biochar Study Tour and Strategic Goals for Future Growth

During our November monthly catch-up, 14 members of the Circular Bionutrient Economy Network (CBEN) gathered to discuss the highlights and key learnings from the Artisanal Study Tour held in Kenya's Baringo and Uasin Gishu counties. Erick Opiyo Abala, who led the tour, shared a summary of the trip, emphasizing its success in part because of the enriching discussions and friendships prompted between participants from Ethiopia, Germany, Kenya, and Uganda.

Sam Thuo from Ziada Solutions and Sol Fusi of ICRAF/UC Berkeley, shared their key takeaways as tour attendees and CBEN facilitators. We delved into the topic of soil testing, prompted by the Ethiopian tour group’s interest in assessing soil conditions before biochar application. Continuing our discussion thread from October’s call, we probed again the balance of testing accuracy versus accessibility- a classic academic-practitioner debate:-) Prof. Johannes  Lehmann advocated for prioritizing plant nutrition over traditional soil testing for initial soil-crop impact assessments, suggesting that plant health tests could provide quicker, more actionable insights for farmers.

He underscored the importance of biochar safety for the carbon market and asked further how CBEN could be a useful bridge between these two market needs (biochar standards and testing access). 

Sol and Sam noted a new precedence for formalizing CBEN in order to scale up network efforts and engagements regionally and internationally to meet these needs. The group discussed pathways to registering CBEN in different countries in East Africa and possible structures of decentralized CBEN teams/organizations to increase our organizational effectiveness and international and regional influence.

To support CBEN's growth, members also explored the potential of decentralized funding models and membership fee systems that could sustain the network's operational costs without restricting participation. 

These discussions prompted planning for December’s Monthly call in which Bella and Erick will lead a deep dive discussion into what is needed (and not needed) to formalize CBEN as members best see fit to then outline a pathway to achieving that and define key stakeholders who will support the efforts. If this sounds interesting please reach out and join next month’s meeting!

By Erick O. Abala

Head of Communications -CBEN