UNDERGROUND Festival

BNNZ and biochar in general was well represented at the festival. One of the 3 speaking/activity venues was called "The Biochar Pit", so it was on the program and visible all during the festival. A BNNZ banner was put up and it looked great with vineyard vines and hills in the background.

A biochar workshop was given on the first day in the second session. About 40 people attended and participated with enthusiasm during the 50 minute interactive session. Ben Elms lent his charbbq kiln and so it was well alight by the start of the workshop. A 5 litre paint can was soon added so that flame cap and retort methods could be talked about and demonstrated. Dylan Graves led the workshop session and was supported by Andrew and Toula from Southland Carbon. The audience at the festival was quite a mix of farmers and other people generally interested or active in the food movement. For the session I think they got the key points about biochar being scalable and the cascade of benefits of adding it to soil via various pathways.

Southland Carbon had a stall for the duration of the festival which was well attended. It was great to hear a couple of other speakers mention char at other talks and for the general enthusiam for biochar around the site. Dylan talked to Nicole Masters about biochar on the second day in passing and she said she is not actively using or promoting it because where she works there is an ample and excellent supply of mined humates. She did point out that humates and biochar both feature long chain carbon chains which are great for the soil.