The international workshop on biochar and sustainable agriculture and the China-ASEAN technology training on biochar and sustainable agriculture were jointly held in Nanjing Agricultural University (NAU) on 19-25 October 2016. The objective was to share the knowledge and achievements on biochar technology for biowaste treatment and soil management in agriculture among China and the southeast Asian countries. Around 100 people from 15 countries attended the workshop and 35 people attended the training course.

This was also a great opportunity to officially launch the Asian Centre of the International Biochar Initiative (IBI) that will be hosted by Nanjing Agricultural University.

Numerous renowned biochar scientists attended the event and shared their knowledge of biochar with an interesting presentation of their most recent research findings.

Local B4SS project coordinator, Dr Xiaoyu Liu, led the field tour in Luhe district, Nanjing, to show the participants the paddy fields that have been amended with biochar and biochar-compound fertilisers.

The workshop participants also visited the NAU demonstration plant of large scale biochar production, which is managed by Qinfeng company in Luhe district, Nanjing.

Many technology companies are developing and testing a range of pyrolysis systems for different purposes in China, and several engineers took advantage of this event to show their most recent developments in biochar production.