From quarries to crops: could quarry fines increase crop yield, improve soil health and remove carbon dioxide from the atmosphere in Tanzania?
Date: Monday 20th March 2023, from 1100 to 1300hrs
Venue: National Carbon Monitoring Centre (NCMC)
Soil infertility and inadequate fertilizer application are considered to be among the root causes of declining agricultural productivity in Tanzania (Amuri et al., 2013). This is partly due to the unavailability of affordable fertilizer to most smallholder farmers. Amending soils with basaltic-quarry fines (QFs) could be an alternative to improving soil health (e.g. increased soil pH, lower Al toxicities) and increasing crop yields (Anda et al., 2013). Furthermore, basaltic- QFs are used as a soil amendment for a carbon dioxide (CO2) removal (CDR) method called Enhanced Weathering (EW) (Beerling et al., 2020).
In Tanzania, there is a readily-available resource to improve lives. Tanzania actively mines basaltic/alkaline rocks, and several millions of tonnes of volcanic overburden are estimated as a resource from just two of Tanzania’s 480 mines (van Straaten, 2002; Geological Survey of Tanzania, 2022).
We are visiting the Sokoine University of Agriculture to learn about agriculture and resource in Tanzania on Monday 20th March and we will be giving a seminar on about our company, UNDO Carbon Limited, highlighting:
What is EW, how does it remove carbon from the atmosphere and how can we predict CDR? What are the agronomic benefits of applying rock to agricultural land? How can we measure carbon dioxide removal in basalt-amended soil?
How can we scale up EW, and where can EW work in Tanzania?
