Sugar cane could be the answer to Australia’s enormous plastic pollution problem, a pair of Sydney-based entrepreneurs say.
About 70 billion pieces of soft “scrunchable” plastics are used in Australia each year, many of which are food packaging.
Very little is recycled and much of it ends up in landfills or the ocean.
That’s a problem Grounded Packaging set out to solve, by creating a food packaging alternative that works like plastic but without any of the harmful impacts to the environment.
Former restaurateur Ben Grant, who co-founded the business with Josh Kempton, knows how difficult it is to find affordable and functional alternatives to plastic.
“We were trying to be as conscious as we could … but there was a particular pain point in trying to understand packaging and the options available to you,” he told AAP.
“The problems or issues with some of those materials are that they’re really really expensive, prohibitively so … and they’re limited in their functionality.”
That’s what led the pair to develop their BioPE material.
Made from sugar cane fibres, it is completely recyclable and carbon-negative – meaning more carbon is captured during the process of creating the product than is used.
It can also store oily and wet foods and liquids that have been forced to rely on plastic packaging in the past.
“One of the reasons why we’re really excited about it is the potential that it has to have positive impacts on a really large scale,” Mr Grant said.
“It can be manufactured using traditional manufacturing equipment, and the raw material is starting to become more and more abundant.”
It’s also far more affordable that other plastic alternatives, at about one-and-a-half times the cost of traditional plastic.
“To put that in to context, a lot of the other alternative materials that are on the market currently are anywhere from two to four times the cost,” Mr Grant said.
With the industry rapidly growing, the material should become cost competitive with plastic in a few years, he says.
The product has been tested with companies in the US and UK, including London coffee roasters Flying Horse, and is now available to Australian businesses.
Mr Grant said it was no silver bullet, but he hoped it would make sustainable practices more accessible for businesses.
“Plastics are dramatically overused… (but) a lot of businesses feel like it is too complex or too hard to be making changes,” he said.
“I would encourage people to look out here because there are some really interesting technologies starting to emerge that can help solve the problem.”
Want to visit a sugarcane farm on Queensland’s Gold Coast? Greg Zipf supplies cane the Rocky Point sugar mill, mulch to home gardeners and also grows soya beans. Like most growers in the region, he’s committed to farming sustainably next to Moreton Bay. This video explains the farm practices behind his accreditation in the sugarcane industry’s best practice program, Smartcane BMP.
In February 2021, Sugar Research Australia and Burdekin Productivity Services took a group of growers up to the Regenerative Cane Farming Forum in Cairns. The clip provides a short recap of the trip.
Thanks to Burdekin Productivity Services and Queensland Department of Agriculture and Fisheries for their support of this event.
Australia has jumped into second place on the list of the world’s biggest raw sugar exporters.
Canegrowers chairman Paul Schembri said Australia had recently overtaken Thailand as the world’s second largest exporter of raw sugar.
“I think many people in our communities and government, and even cane growers, would be surprised to know we are such an important player in this market, sitting second only to Brazil.”
When sugar mills fire up in Australia in June, Canegrowers is anticipating growers will harvest around 29.5 million tonnes of sugarcane, 28mt of that in Queensland. That crop will make around 4mt of raw sugar of which 85 per cent will be exported, earning $1.7 billion.
Thailand is experiencing drought in some of its key growing regions. Thai sugar exports are expected to only be around 2.6mt in 2021 – 4mt less than 2019.
“We have definitely had our own challenges going into the 2021 season,” Mr Schembri said.
“While there has been periodic heavy rain, La Nina didn’t deliver the soaking wet season across the regions that we were looking for and the cane crop for 2021 is around 1.5mt less than the 2020 season.
“Rain gauges tell us that the Burdekin, central, and southern regions, which normally contribute around 60 per cent of Queensland’s total cane tonnage, have had below average rainfall so far this year.”
Bundaberg, Childers and Maryborough remain effectively in drought, with irrigation water storages now critically low.
While Australia may now be the world’s second largest raw exporter, its a case of “daylight second”. Brazil exported a huge 27.5mt last season.
The highly successful Mackay district farming operation Racecourse Projects had its foundations in October 2013 and continues to grow from strength to strength.
Over time the company has invested in more than 5000 hectares of cane land in the Mackay/Plane Creek districts. Last year more than 400,000 tonnes of cane were delivered by the company’s four harvesting groups to Mackay Sugar and Wilmar Sugar mills.
Racecourse Projects is owned by majority shareholder Proterra Investment Partners, an American private equity company that invests in natural resources – agriculture, food, metals and mining – and owns sugar mills in Brazil.
Another major shareholder is Mackay Sugar Limited, which is Australia’s second largest sugar milling company, operating mills at Farleigh, Marion and Racecourse.
Operating partner for Racecourse Projects is George Williams, a fourth generation cane farmer who grew up on the family farm at Dawlish, just north of Sarina.
A qualified fitter and turner at Plane Creek Mill, Mr Williams’ aim was eventually going back on the family farm, which he still runs these days under a share farming agreement with the company.
While he doesn’t get to sit on a tractor much these days, he oversees four farm managers and sets the framework and overall direction of the operation.
Racecourse Projects employs up to 50 staff during the season and as a result has invested heavily in health and safety initiatives. Over the past eight years, the farms have all been converted to a 2.4 metre, 800 mm dual row, controlled traffic system.
“It’s an efficient system. There is less compaction than traditional methods, which will lead to improved water retention over time,” Mr Williams said.
“We only cultivate the ‘grow zone’ and our harvesters only have to travel 4166 metres per ha, saving over 2km per ha in travel compared with a 1.6 metre row farm setup. That’s 10,000 km per year.”
“This system also reduces the amount of turning at the end of the paddock. It has given us huge savings in fuel and labour. Using less horsepower by travelling slower also means a better quality cut with less damage to the stool, giving us improved ratoons.”
The farm machinery runs on GPS, and all chemical and nutrient records are electronic and come directly from the tractor. For the past three years the harvesters have had yield monitors fitted. The data the yield monitors provide allows inputs to be matched with yield potential within the paddock.
“We now have enough yield monitors to cover our entire property. This technology ensures we are not applying fertiliser where there are yield-limiting factors like water logging, grubs or just poor soil,” Mr Williams said.
“We believe that matching inputs to yield potential is good economics for the business and benefits the environment by maximising input utilisation.”
Cane is ratooned for six years, with a 15 per cent fallow factor. The variety selection is up to farm managers with only limited input from Mr Williams. They work with MAPS and an agronomist to determine the selection based on soil types and early/late harvest factors.
Soybeans are grown in rotation with the cane to reduce nitrogen requirements for top dressing and plant cane. The soybeans have been sold to market in previous years but where this has not been possible, they are ploughed back in as a green manure crop.
Currently there are two trials underway on the farms. The first is a multi-species trial over 12 hectares. This is looking at seedling viability and efficiency using an air seeder on a harvester during harvesting compared with using a wavy disc cultivator. Soybean crops have been planted in the trial as a control.
The second trial has involved using an app developed by CSIRO agricultural researcher Dr Peter Thorburn to look at reducing nitrogen rates late in the season for ratoons cut in October, for instance.
“For me, the ratoons we cut in October don’t have the same yield potential as the ratoons cut in June, so why are we putting on the same amount of nitrogen,” Mr Williams said.
“How far can we cut the nitrogen rate back in October without having an impact on yield? The initial results are looking good.”
The first priority for the company was obtaining Bonsucro accreditation in 2017. Now the company is working with Canegowers Mackay based agricultural economist John Eden to obtain Smartcane BMP accreditation this year.
“We need to do the work to prove to people that we have best management practice by keeping the records,” he said
“The actual farming practice in the paddock is the important part of BMP and we’ve been very focused on getting that right, rather than the certificate on the wall. We are constantly improving drainage and creating spoon drains and recycling pits as we fallow paddocks.”
A decision to access disaster recovery assistance after a monsoonal trough wreaked havoc across North Queensland in 2019 has helped one Burdekin farming family get back on its feet.
Cane farms from Ingham to the Burdekin were inundated two years ago, as a monsoon trough brought an unprecedented deluge to the region.
After weeks of advocating for government assistance, the Accessing North Queensland Restocking, Replanting and On-Farm Infrastructure grant was formed to assist farmers.
The grant is focused on securing viability, maintaining business resilience and replacing lost crops and damaged infrastructure.
Burdekin cane growers Bruce and Natasha Davies operate on 81 hectares and are a true testament to the grant’s ability to assist disaster affected producers.
The grant allowed the family farming enterprise, Front Row Farming Co, to recover years earlier than it otherwise would have.
Bruce Davies and his son Alex tapped in to an Accessing North Queensland Restocking, Replanting and On-Farm Infrastructure grant to restore their 81-hectare Burdekin cane farm after they were hit by floodwaters in 2019.
Two years on, Mr Davies said the enterprise “isn’t perfect”, but the grant allowed them to get back to business.
“We’ve put a big hole in the recovery and we’re operational, that’s the key thing,” Mr Davies said.
“The recovery would have been so much slower without the grant, it could have been five to ten years.
“We’re back to being operational and the grant has been of great assistance.”
Mr Davies said the grant allowed them to get to work, drawing down when seasons permitted.
“It’s very helpful to be able to draw down when seasons permit because we can’t do anything in the wet season here,” he said.
“We can’t put down pipelines, we can’t laser level paddocks, we can’t plant cane.
“We’ve been able to manage our cash-flow for the 50 per cent for the grant to match.
“Our income comes from production, so we needed to maximise the tonnes of cane we could produce.”
The Davies’ were referred to the grant via their accountant and started the application process.
The Davies said the grant, administered through the Queensland Rural and Industry Development Authority (QRIDA) on behalf of the Australian Government, allowed them to get back to business.
The grant helped the family pay for repairs to subsidise concrete irrigation lines, plant soy beans to reduce soil salinity and laser level paddocks, as well as repair infrastructure like drains and headlands.
Mr Davies said it was important to access assistance to help ensure long-term recovery and viability efforts.
“It got us going full steam ahead whereas it would have otherwise taken years to be in this position,” he said.
“I would get in and get it done. If you can boost your own production you’re crazy not to.
“I would encourage growers to take advantage of the grant, it’s a no brainer and a tremendous opportunity.
“Look into it, it’s not that hard, it’s not onerous. We had the disaster and this is a way of fixing it for half price.”
We’ve got a good future, if you want to grow sugar cane this is the place.– Bruce Davies
Mr Davies said the future of the cane industry in North Queensland was positive.
“Production here is relatively stable and in 2021 we should be back to where we should be in terms of production,” he said.
“We’ve got a good future, if you want to grow sugar cane this is the place.”
