Cane Scores A Goal At Paris Olympics

By Kevin Borg, Chairman, CANEGROWERS Mackay
If you were following the recent action in Paris, you may have noticed the dazzling blue of the turf on the hockey fields of the Olympics. Called Poligras, it’s a carbon-neutral synthetic turf - and it was 80 per cent sugarcane-based. It’s an interesting fact that as the world looks for ways to get away from plastics, biodegradable products that source sugarcane are now genuinely part of the solution. 
It’s exciting to see these emerging uses for sugarcane as it is a fast-growing tropical grass, so it suits a world looking towards more renewable fuels and fibres. To add to this, the catering industry – driven by government policy on single-use plastics to some extent - has made a major change by introducing reusable cutlery and packaging to material made from biodegradables and compostables. It's positive to look down at your takeaway coffees and sandwich boxes and see the “made from sugarcane” branding.
During the Covid period, restaurants and hotels saw the benefits of supplying customers with disposable biodegradable utensils to help halt the spread of the virus. Since this move, the renewable /disposable utensil and packaging industry has grown to take up a 30% share of that market in 2023.
But, by and large, these are being manufactured overseas with only a company called BioPak that produce in our own country. There are some things that need to happen for Australia to gain an opportunity to take advantage of this massive consumer shift.
First and foremost, we need sugarcane pricing formulas that deliver a return to the producer on value add. Right now, growers are paid on CCS. They are paid for the sugar with only minimal benefits for any further products produced, so there is little return for the growers where there are value adds from the plant we grow and supply – molasses, ethanol, bagasse for fibre or fuels like Sustainable Aviation Fuels or cogen electricity supply to the grid.
Mackay Sugar had a ground-breaking model in the PRS (Percentage Recoverable Sugar) cane payment system, that covered the cane’s sugar content, but also delivered a percentage return on value adds like molasses and cogen. It was introduced in 2005, when the mill was still a cooperatively grower-owned company, and there was a strong interest in mutual benefits and an emerging trend for value-add-on sugar. It was replaced by a return to the CCS model in 2019, as part of the deal with Nordzucker to take on Mackay Sugar.
Nonetheless, PRS remains a great starting point for a new model of cane pricing.
Other millers have never ventured into this space and have continued using the CCS-based system which was devised in 1888 by the Colonial Sugar Refining Company (CSR), and its intent then was to benchmark mill efficiency but was adapted to cane payments. That formula has served us well in the past but is very fast becoming /if not already outdated for this modern era of emerging new technologies and sugarcane-based products. Simply, “sugar ain’t sugar” anymore.
No grower wants something for nothing, and growers invest in their productivity. But it is important that growers are remunerated for ALL useable parts of the sugarcane they grow. Not just the sugar. Just as strong mill reliability will encourage growers to further invest in increasing supply by expanding crop area, so too will reasonable returns on the full sugarcane product.
It is positive to see governmental policy and programs shifting towards reinstating Australia’s manufacturing capabilities. It is positive to see research facilities like the QUT Biocommodities Pilot Plant, and the planned Future Industries Hub at the Resource Centre of Excellence in Paget developing technologies to support new manufacturing streams for sugarcane.

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Sugarcane was a primary ingredient in the synthetic turf used in Hockey at the Paris Olympics

Bagasse is a waste fibre from sugarcane processing that can be used in SAFS and bioplastics

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