Bridging the CDR Market and the Agricultural Sector: A Dual Value Proposition
This post originally appeared on the Inspiratus Technologies LinkedIn blog.
Author: Wietse Vroom, Chief Technology Officer at Inspiratus Technologies
There’s something daunting about thinking of carbon only as a problem to be resolved; as a waste to be cleaned up from our atmosphere. This feeling doesn’t get any better when we consider the magnitude of the challenge ahead of us to bring carbon removal technologies to climate-relevante scale in the coming decades (∼7-9 GtCO2 per year).
Hence, it is refreshing to shift the perspective and see carbon as a potentially valuable resource instead. And to considers the removal of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere as an element in a wider framework that highlights the potential rather than the problem that carbon seems to represent these days.
Enter the emerging notion of the Carbon Economy, which envisions carbon not as waste, but as a productive asset that can circulate through ecosystems and industries in a way that enhances value, resilience, and sustainability. At the intersection of agriculture, energy, and carbon removal, biochar exemplifies this philosophy. It simultaneously locks atmospheric carbon into stable solid form and activates that carbon to perform useful work in soils and industrial systems.
By creating a bridge between carbon dioxide removal (CDR) markets and agricultural productivity, biochar offers a dual value proposition: generating certified negative emissions while improving the foundations of agricultural health and productivity. Let’s unpack this idea.
Biochar: a stable carbon from waste biomass
Biochar is a solid carbon-rich material produced through the pyrolysis of biomass – typically agricultural or forestry residues – at high termperatures, under limited oxygen. This process converts unstable organic carbon into a highly stable form that can persist in soils for centuries. Unlike other carbon removal pathways that rely on geological or oceanic storage of carbon, biochar integrates carbon storage directly into the biosphere’s nutrient and water cycles, aligning with the logic of circular carbon management.
However, the real opportunity lies in how this stable carbon can generate multiple streams of value across the agricultural and energy sectors. Biochar is not merely a carbon sink – it is an enabler of soil regeneration, waste valorization, and decentralized renewable energy production.
Unlocking Value for Farming Communities
When discussing the ‘co-benefits’ of biochar carbon removal, the advantages for agriculture stand out. Biochar has a unique capacity to improve soil health and remediate degraded soils. When incorporated into soil, biochar enhances porosity, water retention, and cation exchange capacity, improving both the physical and chemical environment for root growth and microbial life. It also binds heavy metals and organic pollutants, remediating degraded soils and making them safe for cultivation. This function is particularly relevant in regions where industrial or mining activities have compromised agricultural productivity.
Cacao and vegetable farmers in Peru are facing difficulties due to elevated levels of cadmium and lead in some agricultural soils. Inspiratus Technologies, a Peruvian biochar company, is conducting field trials to evaluate if biochar can be used to immobilize these heavy metals in the soil and avoid them from being assimilated by the crops growing on these soils.
Biochar is also known to improve crop yields and reducing fertilizer dependency. Biochar reduces nutrient leaching and nitrogen losses, improving fertilizer-use efficiency and lowering input costs. Over time, farmers can maintain or increase yields while relying less on synthetic fertilizers—both a financial and environmental gain.
Finally, biochar’s sponge-like structure increases the soil’s ability to retain water and buffer drought stress, allowing plants to maintain growth during dry periods. This quality is crucial for climate adaptation, especially for smallholder farmers in regions with limited irrigation resources.
Creating Value from Waste Streams and Reducing Air Pollution
Many agricultural regions struggle with residue management – crop residues, husks, pruning waste, or animal manure that are often burned, releasing CO₂, methane, and particulates. In the context of Peru, the traditional burning of sugarcane, is a notorious problem, leading to air pollution and respiratory health issues in surrounding communities. By providing an alternative to burning harvest residues, farming communities can transform waste into a valuable resource, avoiding air pollution and public health risks associated with open burning.
Biochar as Part of a Broader Carbon Economy
The examples of how biochar is a valuable resource in farming underlines how carbon should not (just) be seen as a pollutant to eliminate, but as a resource to manage intelligently. This principle underpins a broader Carbon Economy, where carbon fluxes are directed toward productive, regenerative purposes rather than linear emission pathways.
The dual use of biochar as a carbon sequestration pathway, and a useful soil amendment exemplifies this logic. But there is more: the process of pyrolysis to produce biochar also generates co-products: syngas and bio-oil. These represent additional renewable energy sources that can be used for heat, power, or chemical feedstocks, or can be used in other applications (e.g. road surfaces). These outputs and their applications further increase the economic viability of biochar systems, reduce reliance on fossil fuels, and strengthen the overall carbon balance.
Finally, not all biomass must become biochar. Using agricultural residues directly as a renewable fuel in place of fossil sources reduces emissions and provides decentralized energy. Other applications can also be identified, for example as feed or bedding material in the context of animal husbandry. These applications do not lead to carbon sequestration, but they highlight the versatility of biomass as a resource for a wide range of applications and potential revenue streams, without the need for advanced technologies.
Financing the Transition: Carbon Credits as a flywheel
Scaling biochar deployment is often linked to carbon credit markets, where stable carbon storage is monetized as a carbon cleanup service. While such credits provide essential early incentives and de-risk investments, they need not be the sole economic driver.
Trevithihck’s 1802 steam locomotive, which used a flywheel to evenly distribute the power of its single cylinder- Image from Birmingham Museums Trust (CC BY-SA 4.0)
Instead, in a mature Carbon Economy, carbon credits function as a flywheel. At early stages, they lower entry barriers for new projects and provide reliable income from the CDR value chain. Over time, they complement a diversified portfolio of revenues from soil amendments, yield improvements, renewable energy production, waste management, and environmental remediation.
The goal is to evolve toward plural, resilient business models where carbon credits play a stabilizing – not dominating – role. The combination of tangible agricultural and energy benefits with long-term carbon storage makes biochar uniquely suited to thrive even in fluctuating carbon markets.
So, what is needed to support this notion of a Carbon Economy and to realize its potential globally? Supporting policies can make a big difference.
Connecting the Carbon Economy to National Bioeconomy Strategies
Across the world, bioeconomy strategies have emerged as guiding frameworks for using biological resources and innovation to foster sustainable growth, rural development, and climate mitigation. These frameworks depart from the recognition that available amounts of (waste) biomass are tremendous and often underutilized, while they could be the basis of sustainable economic growth.
The European Union’s Bioeconomy Strategy positions the bioeconomy around circularity, sustainability, and replacing fossil-based resources with renewable biological ones – explicitly linking these goals to food security, resource efficiency, and climate action. Similarly, several Latin American countries have adopted bioeconomy agendas tailored to their ecological and social contexts. Brazil’s National Bioeconomy Strategy (2024) coordinates conservation, innovation, and industrial development around its vast biodiversity and biomass base. Colombia, Chile, and Argentina have followed similar paths, seeking to add value to agricultural and forest value chains while promoting rural inclusion and ecosystem restoration. The Latin American Bioeconomy Network (under the coordination of IICA – the Inter-American Institute for Cooperation on Agriculture), has published a set of guiding principles for the bioeconomy and how to stimulate it.
From this policy perspective, the Carbon Economy and national bioeconomy strategies share the same logic: managing biological carbon circularly, building local value chains, and fostering innovation that decouples growth from emissions. Explicitly integrating biochar and distributed pyrolysis systems into bioeconomy frameworks would strengthen both agendas by advancing circular biomass use, securing long-term carbon storage, and supporting rural livelihoods.
A Plural and Robust Carbon Economy
The Carbon Economy is a comprehensive framework for value creation across agriculture, industry, and energy. It recognizes that carbon – managed wisely – can sustain soils, generate clean energy, and stabilize the climate. Of course, robust sustainability criteria and social safeguards will be essential to ensure that these systems deliver on both climate and development objectives. But the potential of the carbon economy to contribute to sustainable development is huge and within reach.
Biochar, as both a product and a principle, stands at the heart of this transformation. It demonstrates that climate action and agricultural prosperity are not competing goals, but two sides of the same carbon coin.
