HUSK
Transforming an under-utilised agricultural byproduct—rice husk—into highly effective biochar based inputs to build soil fertility, improve yields and combat climate change.
Website: https://www.huskventures.com
Founded year: 2017
Industry: Agri-business
Applications: Carbon based fertilizers, carbon credits
Business model: B2B, B2C
Country HQ: Cambodia
CEO: Heloise Buckland
Srey Veasna, smallholder vegetable farmer, Battambang, Cambodia - “I use HUSK biochar to make my soil softer and my seedlings germinate faster¨
YOUR JOURNEY TO FOUNDING
There's two ways to answer this. There's the kind of realistic, slightly boring version, and then there's the more inspiring one. Realistic, boring, is 20 years working in social innovation and sustainability, and I had a pivot in my career whereby I wanted to do something more practical and hands-on. I met my co-founder who had a background in business, and we decided to create something new that was viable, scalable, and impactful.
That doesn’t sound boring, really. Now, I’m curious about the more inspiring version...
In 2017—when Carol and I decided to embark upon this journey and create an impactful business—we looked at all sorts of agricultural byproducts that had a low value and thought how we can add value to help smallholder farmers become more climate resilient. When we came across rice husk, we saw how big it was in terms of volume—150 million tonnes are produced around the world every year—and how low was its market value, around $20 per tonne. We were like: sure we can do something better than that to support smallholder farmers who grow 80% of the world’s food!
“Sure we can do something better than that to support smallholder farmers who grow 80% of the world’s food”
We spent about a year and a half talking to experts, entrepreneurs, academics, scientists, technology folk to try and find what we could do with the rice husk. And there are many options like building materials—because it's high in silica—pellets for cookstoves, or to make chopsticks, coffee cups and hundreds of other things. We looked at many options, but what we didn’t do was to directly ask the farmers: ‘what do you do with the rice husk?’
With our European egos, we thought we'll be able to find a great solution and then we will give it to the farmers. It was only on the last trip that we realised that what they actually used to do with it was to turn it into biochar. And they had been doing this for thousands of years.
Are they not doing this anymore?
No, because with industrialisation there aren’t small mills where every farmer has a pile of rice husk next to their paddy fields. Now the rice husk piles up in an industrial mill, so they don’t have access anymore to the husk to make biochar to improve their soils. So they buy cheap chemical fertilizers that degrade the soil. It took us a year and a half to come full circle and realise that the answer was staring us in the face. It was a real lesson of humility. We should have really just talked to the farmers about what they do with the rice husk.
THE INNOVATION
So you have been re-introducing an old practice into an industrialised system that forgot about it. What does your production process look like?
I can explain it through the lens of the carbon cycle, because I'm passionate about doing something with my time on this planet that is contributing towards a reduction in carbon emissions and helping to solve the biggest challenge humanity faces: climate change. As you know, the rice plant absorbs the carbon into the plant, the paddy is taken to the rice mill, where the husk is separated from the grain. The husk is then normally burnt for fuel in the larger mills or left to decompose, causing greenhouse gas emissions. At this point, we installed the pyrolysis technology at the rice mill and converted this husk into biochar, which we then turned into products for smallholder farmers.
The HUSK Story
What benefits does this biochar have for your clients?
We sell this to distributors and to agricultural cooperatives, which then sell on to the smallholder farmers who put the biochar products into their soil. This gives the soil the capacity to regenerate itself and to hold on to water in dry seasons, to hold on to nutrients, and to also act as a host for the microorganisms, bacteria and fungi that are essential for plant life. And the carbon stays in the soil. So, the carbon that's been absorbed from the atmosphere is fixed in the soil where it stays for at least 100 years - the IPCC reckons 100 years of carbon stability, but there are remains of biochar from thousands of years ago.
Chay Lo, entrepreneur and distributor of natural inputs for farmers - ¨I sell HUSK products to farmers in Battambang who want to grow their products with less chemicals´
For us, this is our key draw-down technology. We are literally drawing down carbon from the atmosphere and fixing it in the soil, while benefiting the farmers in terms of improvement in their yields, which I hope is going to make for more resilient families that can continue to live off the land.
“We are literally drawing down carbon from the atmosphere and fixing it in the soil, while benefiting the farmers”
APPLICATIONS
You earlier mentioned that you looked into a broad range of potential applications, before settling into the conversion of rice husk into biochar. How have you come to such a conclusion?
Basically, we tried other things and we failed - it wasn't really a theoretical exercise. We tried to make pellets as a fuel, for example. We looked at the science and it says that you can turn rice husk into pellets. There's technology that exists to do this. We thought we could use this as fuel for cookstoves, and that would avoid deforestation and people cooking on wood. So we bought a pelletizer, which I put it in my garage in Spain. We got the rice husk from a local rice mill, and we tried to make pellets. It's really hard because the rice husk is made of silicone so it's crunchy, it doesn't stick together. We tried all kinds of binding agents and finally made pellets and even took them to Cambodia, where we tried them with cookstoves.
Sounds like a successful experiment…
But then—when we tried to look at the price of selling the rice husk pellets as an alternative to wood fuel—we realised that it was impossible to compete on price. Given that we needed so much energy to make the pellets, our cost of production was very high. And so the wood would always be cheaper. At that time, our aim was to stop deforestation and use an agricultural byproduct for fuel instead. But, unfortunately, we realised that the deforestation in Cambodia is not happening to produce fuel. Rather, they are cutting down mahogany to grow cash crops like banana and cassava. And they are doing this because the soil is so degraded and poor that they need to cut down forests to create more land to grow more cash crops.
“They are doing this because the soil is so degraded and poor that they need to cut down forests to create more land to grow more cash crops”
Was this the turning point?
Yes, I figured that if we just invest in the soil, this is a much better way to avoid deforestation, because you can use the same land to grow the crops that you need to sell for subsistence. And you don't have to keep chopping down new areas of virgin forest. Whether there is rice pellets or not as fuel, the mahogany would still be going anyway. Even if it is not sold, the mahogany would be burnt on site, because the issue is poverty and people need cash today, they need to grow bananas today. And they need good soil for that. So, biochar just made a lot more sense.
VALUE IN SYSTEMIC TRANSITION
What has been the impact of your innovation up to today?
We've just done some trials with 200 farmers in one of the provinces of Cambodia, called Battambang. And over a six month period, we worked with these 200 farmers and gave them samples about different types of products that we're selling. Right now, we have three products: 1) biochar —which is just a basic soil improver —2) carbon-based fertiliser, which is biochar plus other nutrients—macro and micro—and then we have 3) a natural insect repellent or a bio-pesticide, which is is an alternative to chemical pesticides.
HUSK Biochar is a high quality, affordable product for smallholder farmers.
HUSK Natural Insect Repellent is a biopesticide that helps reduce the use of chemical pesticides.
We tested up all of these products and measured the yield increase. Across the 200 farmers, we had an average yield increase of 21% and even higher for biochar, which was 26%. That was our most recent trial. Over the last two years, we've done 20 crop trials with different partners across the country, where we had an average of 29% increase across different crops.
“Across the 200 farmers, we had an average yield increase of 21% and even higher for biochar, which was 26%”
In terms of impact, higher yield means higher revenues for the farmer. And we're looking at the breakeven point for the farmer per metre square - taking into consideration the increase in revenue from higher yields, minus the cost of the biochar. However there are also other hidden benefits. The natural insect repellent means people don't have to use chemical pesticides, so there's a health benefit there. The use of chemical pesticides is a concern in South East Asia - farmers don’t like using them and it’s hard to get people to work on the field where they spray chemicals.
There are also benefits in terms of reduced irrigation costs, because the water is held into the soil. And, curiously enough, even the taste is better, because the sugar content of fruiting crops, like tomatoes and cucumbers, increases. In this way, farmers can produce organic, natural and safe vegetables which allows them to sell for a premium in the market.
Tek Sopath, natural farmer, Kandal, Cambodia -“I used to water my seedlings 3 times per day, with HUSK biochar I just water once”
Suong Hok, Natural Vegetable Farmer, Battambang, Cambodia -“I like to use HUSK natural insect repellent on my cherry tomatoes so my family doesn’t have to use chemical pesticides¨
Do you also have an estimate about the carbon that you are able to prevent being created and sequester once is in the atmosphere?
Yes, we've spent quite a lot of time on this. We sequester 1.33 tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent for every tonne of biochar that we produce. This number is calculated taking into consideration that we use a small amount of energy in our production—so we discount that—and we also discount a 2% loss in the soil for every year, over a period of 100 years. We are now also selling carbon removal credit (CRCs) to individuals and organisations who are interested in sequestering their own carbon footprint, whether for a one-off flight or for a business.
“We sequester 1.33 tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent for every tonne of biochar that we produce”
We're on a platform called My Carbon Zero, where we just started commercialising our husk carbon removal credits. For Black Friday, Friday 27th of November - this crazy day where everybody goes shopping - we will run a Biochar Black Friday and have people sequester carbon by buying a husk carbon remola credit. In this way, they could compensate for their own carbon production and support farmers in Cambodia.
Is this going to be a part of your business model?
Yes. One part is generating revenues through sales to smallholder farmers. But this is really hard, because they earn $5 a day, so we need to have such a lean production process and keep the direct costs of production very low. We supplement that with selling carbon removal credits, via carbon brokers like My Carbon Zero, and we're working with the European Biochar Certificate and with the International Biochar Institute to develop this further. This helps us reduce our cost of production, to enable our products to be as affordable as possible for smallholder farmers.
FUTURE PLANS
We have finished the proof of concept, and right now we are fundraising - seeking investment to go to the next level. This will allow us to build our production capacity in Cambodia to a minimal viable production unit scale, because at the moment we're still very small, we're constantly sold out, and we don't have enough production capacity. Basically, we need a bigger machine!
We have also been developing an international licensing model to be able to replicate what we've done in Cambodia in other countries with other agri businesses. Now that we understand the business from the production to the application, we feel that this is something we want to share. We want to replicate the model with value aligned businesses and increase our imapct.
“We want to replicate the model with value aligned businesses and increase our impact”
How have you managed the financials until today with no equity investment?
Up to here it has been three sources. Basically, we really bootstrapped this in the last two years. We’ve been awarded prizes, we received grants and we have been in acceleration programs. We also took a very favourable soft loan with a five-year payback period, which helped us buy our first machine. And then we've also been selling services, like knowledge about biochar as consultants to UNIDO and some other companies that are interested in what we're doing. This made us realise that there is value in the licensing model. And then obviously, the co-founders’ personal contributions.
HUSK team support Cambodian smallholder farmers with advice on more sustainable farming practices.
Who is in your team at the moment?
We just had a team Zoom call, and there were 10 people in four countries. Most of the team is in Cambodia where the the production and sales is managed and we have two members of the executive team in Europe. Our plant pathologist is in the US and we regularly have volunteers both working on the ground in Cambodia and online.
VISION FOR DECADE OF ACTION
You are working at the intersection of crucial topics, from carbon sequestration to soil fertility and economic livelihoods out of safe and clean agriculture. What’s your vision for the potential of this type of innovation?
I think both are key to the survival of the human species. Without food, we are not going to last very long. And, without soil, we are not going to grow food. Soil degradation, climate change and poverty are so intrinsically linked, that this vicious cycle has to be broken. Our vision for 2035 is to sink a million tonnes of carbon into the soil. That would feel like we have done a good job. Soil carbon is what is needed, because one third of the world is degraded soil. It’s such a simple solution, it’s something that nature has always done - a forest fire generates carbon that goes into the soil that regenerates the soil and enables it to hold onto this life that the forest needs. And we've lost that practice.
“Soil degradation, climate change and poverty are so intrinsically linked, that this vicious cycle has to be broken”
We are just bringing back a really age-old nature-based solution that I feel will scale because people are waking up and are interested in systemic change. With all that has happened this year, I see much more interest around soil regeneration than I’ve ever seen before. I feel the time is ripe for biochar. Within the land-based carbon removal technologies that the IPCC recommends—where the top 5 are afforestation and reforestation, bioenergy with carbon capture and storage, soil carbon, enhanced weathering and biochar— biochar has half the potential of reforestation, which is quite significant.
There's a lot of academic research around biochar and the impact on soils and yields and carbon sequestration, but there aren’t enough businesses practising this in real-life. We want to replicate, scale and socialise so that this solution can really take off. We've had interest from Ghana, Vietnam, Colombia, Egypt, Turkey, Spain - with 150 million tonnes of rice husk produced around the world every year, the opportunity is huge. But the first step is to increase our production capacity in Cambodia and then once we have this beacon, we want it to shine onto other countries.
A conversation between Heloise Buckland (Co-founder & CEO, Husk) & Emanuele Di Francesco
October 2020
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