Organic farming is an environmentally friendly and sustainable model for agricultural production. Starting from 2000, TSC has strictly selected high-quality farms as organic rice cultivation bases. In addition to actively develop our own organic crop cultivation zones, we also continue the trial planting and mass production of economic crops. In 2024, the self-operated organic rice certification area reached 87.85 hectares. The main market includes schools & group meals, convenience stores and chain channels. Furthermore, in line with the government's promotion of the new agricultural policy to advocate organic farming, as of the end of December 2024, the Company has provided the government 334.57 hectares (14 cases) of leased land for the establishment of a special zone for organic agriculture. Additionally, the Company continues to support the promotion and cultivation of organic agriculture through leasing arrangements, offering organic farmland, greenhouse facilities, packaging rooms, and refrigeration equipment for lease to professional farmers or agricultural enterprise groups. As of the end of December 2024, the leased area amounted to 1,025.15 hectares, encompassing a total of 192 cases.

　　Currently, the mainstream of agriculture in Taiwan still adopts conventional farming methods. To reduce the negative impact of the use of chemical fertilizers and pesticides in conventional agriculture on soil and water resources, our Sugar Business Division has joined hands with the Taiwan Sugar Research Institute (TSRI) to conduct research and testing on the carbon sequestration benefits of green manure crops and the biological prevention and control of pests and diseases. We will continue to improve and verify, aiming at finding a recycling model that is easy to implement and has economic benefits to promote the sustainable development of agriculture.

 　　The main sources of GHG emissions of the Food and Agriculture Industry are from the “rice planting” and “crop residue burning” on the farmland, and the “agricultural soil,” “lime treatment,” and “urea application” for soil fertilization. Among them, the “agricultural soil” in soil fertilization accounts for the highest proportion of emissions. According to foreign literature, rotating leguminous green manure with corn for 12 years can fix an average of 1.3 metric tonnes of carbon into the soil per hectare per year. Green manure can be used as fertilizer directly or indirectly. It also has the functions of increasing soil nutrients and organic matter, improving the physical and chemical properties of soil, and reducing soil erosion. By improving soil fertility and ecological conditions, it can even allow crops with biomass energy potential to be planted on land that was originally unsuitable for cultivation.

　　TSC has a vast planting area of sugarcane, making it an indispensable carbon pool. The Sugar Business Division also plants leguminous crops such as Sesbania and Sun Hemp after the harvest of sugarcane and before the planting period. Based on the experimental data of the Agricultural Research and Extension Station, by incorporating 25,000 kg of fresh sunn hemp green manure biomass per hectare and assuming a nitrogen mineralization rate of 80%, it is estimated the amount of nitrogen fertilizer used in subsequent plantings can be reduced by 1/3 to 1/2, thereby reducing the production of greenhouse gases.

　　Part of our company's land is released for lease (for melon farmers to grow melons or other short-term crops), for weed control areas in sugarcane plantations, waste materials (filter mud, bagasse, ash) for sugar factories, and for application of alkaline materials such as oyster shell powder to improve acidic soil, not all leisure land is used to plant green manure crops. According to statistics, the total green manure planting area in 2022/2023 is 444.28 hectares, and it is initially estimated that 577.54 metric tonnes of carbon can be fixed in the soil of sugarcane plantations. However, the actual data requires an experimental inventory of the cultivated land planted with green manure in previous years to obtain objective quantitative data. Therefore, the Sugar Business Division and the Taiwan Sugar Research Institute (TSRI) proposed a project to cooperate with National Tsing Hua University in 2023-2024 to select 4 farms to use 4 organic materials of filter mud, bagasse, green manure and pig manure compost as the test base. Each farm also added 100% and 50% chemical fertilizers as the control groups, and evaluated the impact on the organic quality in the soil after one and a half years of cultivation. The test results show that adding filter mud has the most significant effect on increasing soil organic carbon content. It is roughly estimated that after a whole cycle of spring planting sugarcane, the soil organic carbon can increase by 0.6 metric tonnes and 1.2 metric tonnes per hectare in the surface and subsoil respectively (an average of 0.9 metric tonnes per hectare), followed by bagasse.

　　In addition, the analysis of the composition of the sugar production by-product fly ash revealed that the total carbon content of the fly ash is about 5.5%, showing great potential to increase soil carbon sinks. After conversion, if 365 metric tonnes of fly ash is applied per hectare, the soil organic carbon content of the surface soil can be increased by about 1%.

　　To help implement the agricultural policy of "reducing chemical pesticides by 50% in 10 years," Taiwan Sugar Corporation has collaborated with academic research institutions to expand trials of using birds of prey to reduce rodent damage, and has invested in research on the use of drones to drop Red-eyed egg parasitoid wasps (Trichogramma) to control sugarcane borers. This is intended to resolve the pain point of the previous need for manual application of parasitic wasp sheets, which is labor-intensive and time-consuming.

　　At the beginning of 2024, the Sugar Business Division held its first physical exchange activity with the Pest Management Technology Development Team of the Kyushu Okinawa Agricultural Research Center (NARO) after the pandemic, reopening new ideas and cooperation opportunities between Taiwan and Japan in sugarcane breeding, integrated pest control, and precision management. During the meeting, opinions were exchanged on the control methods of sugarcane wireworms, the use of sex pheromone attractants, and trapping containers, which will help the company apply them to sugarcane plantations in the future to reduce the pest population and damage, increase the proportion of perennial sugarcane, reduce tillage in sugarcane cultivation, and thus reduce carbon emissions. In September 2024, the Taiwan Sugar Research Institute (TSRI) received the delegation led by Minister of Department of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries, Okinawa Prefectural Government, Japan to share the current status of Taiwan Sugar's sugarcane breeding and the experience of using drones for biological control of sugarcane borers. The two sides also exchanged and discussed the implementation details of attaching GPS to the tractor in the sugarcane field.