Turning rural waste into green gold 

Challenge

In rural Senegal, three major challenges are holding back both the green transition and improvements in agricultural productivity:

• Accelerating deforestation: Nearly 75% of rural households still rely on fuelwood as their main cooking fuel source, putting increasing pressure on forest resources and steadily reducing vegetation cover.
• Costly dependence on imported fertilisers: Agricultural productivity depends on input whose prices and availability fluctuate sharply, weakening farms and increasing their exposure to international marketsglobal trade pressures.
• Untapped agricultural residues: Groundnut and cashew shells, rice husks and other by‑products remain largely unused, despite their significant and still underexploited energy and agronomic potential.

Innovative solution

Univers Casa Bio has developed an integrated circular solution that turns these residues into valuable resources, building on three complementary pillars:

• the production of biofertilisers combining compost and biochar, designed to gradually reduce reliance on imported chemical fertilisers.
• the production of specialised biological charcoals (Grillades Plus, Fumance Plus) for cooking, offering a sustainable alternative to traditional wood charcoal;
• the development of biochar as a long‑lasting soil amendment that boosts soil fertility and increases crop yields by over 20%;
• the production of biofertilisers combining compost and biochar, designed to gradually reduce reliance on imported chemical fertilisers.

Impact

• Improved livelihoods for 1,200 beneficiaries
• 1,800 new B2C customers secured
• 2,498 tonnes of finished products produced and marketed (biological charcoal, biochar and biofertilisers)
• 100 direct jobs created across the value chain

Photo credit ©Univers Casa Bio