Taiwan Sugar Corp (Taisugar, 台糖) is seeking to expand its award-winning program that turns sugarcane waste into mushroom cultivation packs, the state-run company said.
The company yearly turns 400 tonnes of sugarcane byproduct into cultivation packs, Taisugar said at a news conference in Taipei on Thursday.
The packs contain 50 percent sugarcane waste and 50 percent sawdust, which the company determined to be the “optimal” ratio after experiments, it said, adding that the packs are then “rented” to mushroom farmers.
Photo: Lin Jing-hua, Taipei Times
“The reason we say ‘rent’ rather than sell is because we take back the used packs at the end of the harvest cycle,” Taisugar circular economy head Jan Chang (張建成) said. “We then further compost the used packs with other materials and sell it as compost.”
“This brings additional profit to Taisugar and ensures the packs are not irresponsibly disposed of,” he said, adding that some unscrupulous farmers dump used packs irresponsibly.
“We are trying to create a closed circle,” he said.
Farmers receive a double benefit from the program, as sugarcane waste is supplied to them at NT$2.5 per kilogram compared with about NT$3.4 for hardwood sawdust, which is usually used for growing king oyster mushrooms.
They also receive a 20 to 30 percent boost in yield compared with using pure sawdust, Taisugar said.
The company produces 50,000 tonnes of sugar per year, resulting in 130,000 to 150,000 tonnes of sugarcane waste. About 70 percent of the waste is burnt to generate electricity and the rest are composted, leaving room for growth in the cultivation pack program.
“There’s definitely demand for more from farmers,” Chang said.
Taisugar is working on different ways to expand the program, including cultivation packs with a higher percentage of sugarcane waste and recycling the plastic bags that hold the substrate.
“The technology is there to recycle the plastic bags used to make the cultivation packs, but we are still working on the economic feasibility,” Chang said.
While cane sugar once played a vital role in the growth of the nation’s economy, acreages have been declining as the cost of producing sugar has increased compared with imported sugar.
“We cannot compete on price with a country like Brazil with huge farms that allow for mechanized harvesting, but sugar is a necessity and we will keep some domestic production for food security reasons,” Taisugar secretariat director Hsiao Kuang-hung (蕭光宏) said.
The company’s cultivation pack program has won top honors in the “innovative service” category of the Taiwan Circular Economy Awards last month.
However, the program itself dates back to 2014.
“Before the circular economy became a buzzword, Taisugar has been working on minimizing our environmental impact and maximizing our resources,” Hsiao said.
CHIP RACE: Three years of overbroad export controls drove foreign competitors to pursue their own AI chips, and ‘cost US taxpayers billions of dollars,’ Nvidia said China has figured out the US strategy for allowing it to buy Nvidia Corp’s H200s and is rejecting the artificial intelligence (AI) chip in favor of domestically developed semiconductors, White House AI adviser David Sacks said, citing news reports. US President Donald Trump on Monday said that he would allow shipments of Nvidia’s H200 chips to China, part of an administration effort backed by Sacks to challenge Chinese tech champions such as Huawei Technologies Co (華為) by bringing US competition to their home market. On Friday, Sacks signaled that he was uncertain about whether that approach would work. “They’re rejecting our chips,” Sacks
Taiwan’s long-term economic competitiveness will hinge not only on national champions like Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. (TSMC, 台積電) but also on the widespread adoption of artificial intelligence (AI) and other emerging technologies, a US-based scholar has said. At a lecture in Taipei on Tuesday, Jeffrey Ding, assistant professor of political science at the George Washington University and author of "Technology and the Rise of Great Powers," argued that historical experience shows that general-purpose technologies (GPTs) — such as electricity, computers and now AI — shape long-term economic advantages through their diffusion across the broader economy. "What really matters is not who pioneers
BUBBLE? Only a handful of companies are seeing rapid revenue growth and higher valuations, and it is not enough to call the AI trend a transformation, an analyst said Artificial intelligence (AI) is entering a more challenging phase next year as companies move beyond experimentation and begin demanding clear financial returns from a technology that has delivered big gains to only a small group of early adopters, PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) Taiwan said yesterday. Most organizations have been able to justify AI investments through cost recovery or modest efficiency gains, but few have achieved meaningful revenue growth or long-term competitive advantage, the consultancy said in its 2026 AI Business Predictions report. This growing performance gap is forcing executives to reconsider how AI is deployed across their organizations, it said. “Many companies
TAIWAN VALUE CHAIN: Foxtron is to fully own Luxgen following the transaction and it plans to launch a new electric model, the Foxtron Bria, in Taiwan next year Yulon Motor Co (裕隆汽車) yesterday said that its board of directors approved the disposal of its electric vehicle (EV) unit, Luxgen Motor Co (納智捷汽車), to Foxtron Vehicle Technologies Co (鴻華先進) for NT$787.6 million (US$24.98 million). Foxtron, a half-half joint venture between Yulon affiliate Hua-Chuang Automobile Information Technical Center Co (華創車電) and Hon Hai Precision Industry Co (鴻海精密), expects to wrap up the deal in the first quarter of next year. Foxtron would fully own Luxgen following the transaction, including five car distributing companies, outlets and all employees. The deal is subject to the approval of the Fair Trade Commission, Foxtron said. “Foxtron will be
RSS