A new biochar program in the North Carolina Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services traces its roots to a trifecta of problems affecting Western North Carolina, but it ultimately aims to improve soil and water on farms across the state.
Biochar is a carbon-rich soil amendment made by heating organic material in a very low-oxygen environment. The material is not burned, but the heat drives a thermochemical conversion process known as pyrolysis.
“It’s made from organic waste [like wood or manure],” explained Dalton Buchanan, a soil scientist in the department’s Division of Soil and Water Conservation. “Once it’s heated, you end up with very carbon-stable tiny chunks of what looks like charcoal. It’s very similar to charcoal — that you can then use for ag purposes.”
What prompted a biochar program
The three Western N.C. problems that led to the new biochar program date back to 2023 and 2024. The Canton paper mill closed in 2023, which dropped the price that regional landowners could get for pulpwood and also lowered timber values. Then in 2024, Hurricane Helene’s floodwaters damaged farmland, washing away soil or burying fields and leaving them in need of significant restoration. Helene also caused the third problem – damage to hundreds of thousands of acres of forest left enormous amounts of woody debris on the ground.
Those problems led to exploring biochar as a possible solution, eventually resulting in the department’s new biochar program.
USDA’s Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS) ran a pilot program to test biochar applications on Helene-affected farms. The $300,000 program provided an opportunity to begin learning how the process could work under North Carolina conditions.
“NRCS has sort of set the stage and demonstrated the applicability of biochar as a best management practice,” said Joshua Vetter, chief of the Soil and Water Conservation Division’s Environmental Services Section. “We’re trying to expand off of what they did with their pilot with significantly more funds available in this.”
That funding is a $12.8 million grant from the National Association of Conservation Districts (NACD), funded through NRCS. About $10.9 million of the grant is going directly to farmers through incentive payments. The remainder is for staff, training and technical assistance.
Over the next three years, the biochar program is expected to reach at least 400 farmers and 6,500 acres across all 96 soil and water conservation districts in the state. The goal goes beyond the three-year grant, however. The Division of Soil and Water Conservation is working toward making biochar a full statewide cost-share conservation practice, much like the other practices offered through its Agriculture Cost Share Program. As part of that effort, the Division is developing North Carolina’s first best management practices for biochar and training conservation district staff to implement them.
How biochar helps now and later
Biochar is seen as not only a solution for those three problems facing Western North Carolina but also as a long-term tool for land management and soil improvement across the state.
There’s hope that biochar can create a new market for pulpwood and timber in Western North Carolina, which would help with a current and future concern in the area. The smaller or lower-quality trees removed during forest thinning are commonly referred to as pulpwood because they historically could be sold to paper mills. The closure of the Pactiv Evergreen paper mill in Canton removed an important market for that material.
Without a market for that lower-value wood, the economics of forest thinning and management can become more difficult, and that means the general timber market has been negatively affected too.
“Without having a market for the pulpwood, landowners may just stop logging it altogether because the cost goes upside down, I’ve been told,” Buchanan said. “Without the paper mill, they can’t get a market for the pulpwood, and without the money for the pulpwood, the value in the timber alone is not enough to justify cutting out pulpwood if it can’t be sold.”
Biochar could also help build back soils. As a soil amendment, it can help improve some of the characteristics that make soil productive. So it’s not just fertilizer.
The porous nature of biochar means it can help soil hold water and nutrients. For farmers, that can have several potential benefits. Biochar can improve soil structure, provide habitat for soil microorganisms and help keep water and nutrients from moving out of the soil and into waterways.
Creating biochar also creates a demand for woody material that might otherwise be burned, mulched, landfilled or left to decompose. That could be particularly significant in western North Carolina.
“One of the things that helped kick this off was a lot of the woody debris coming from Hurricane Helene. It is readily available to be used for biochar,” Vetter said.
However, the long-term goal isn’t to require farmers to use biochar made from Helene debris. Rather, the program creates demand for qualified biochar from a variety of sources. That could include clean pulpwood once the supply of Helene debris diminishes. Other parts of the state may have other sources, including biochar made from agricultural or animal waste.
“The only mandate is that whatever the biochar is made from meets testing standards that are set forth at NRCS to be sure that material is clean and uncontaminated,” Vetter said.
Getting biochar to farmers
Ultimately, the goal of the program is to help farmers across the state use biochar as a conservation practice.
“You’re talking soil health. The more organic matter in the form of biochar that you add to the soil, the more nutrient-holding capacity and the more water infiltration you’re going to get. And so if there’s more water going in, there’s going to be less water running off,” Vetter said. “Our intended use of this grant is to get agricultural producers applying this as a soil amendment to help water quality and then benefit agricultural production also. That’s the idea here.”
The process will work much like other conservation cost-share programs. A farmer works with their local Soil and Water Conservation District to determine whether biochar is appropriate for their farm and how much should be applied.
Once the application is approved, the farmer purchases biochar from a qualified supplier and has it applied to the field. The program then reimburses the producer based on the approved payment scenario.
The program also establishes standards for the biochar itself. Suppliers must have their product tested to ensure it meets NRCS requirements, helping ensure that farmers are receiving a material appropriate for agricultural use.
Conservation district staff and other partners will receive training on biochar, allowing them to help farmers determine when and how the practice can be used. That training is being built into the program for the long term so they understand how to implement the program locally long after the grant ends.
The Division also plans to work with NC State Extension, NCDA&CS agronomists and other partners to reach producers through outreach events and demonstrations.
By the time the grant period is over in three years, the goal is to have moved biochar from an emerging possibility into a full statewide cost-share conservation program just like other Division programs. It could help keep nutrients and sediment out of waterways, provide another market for material from forest management, offer a productive use for some woody storm debris and give farmers another tool for building resilient soils.