SU’s Waste-to-Soil Project to Help Beipu Township Improve Farmland Quality

On Feburary 25^th, 2023, at Nanchang Temple in Beipu Township, Hsinchu County, Soochow University, Beipu Township Office, as well as Beipu Elementary School, signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) for promoting and developing probiotic soil in Beipu local area.

Through Soochow’s USR project, the three-way cooperation on the fertilization of the soil for planting black tea or rice is expected to improve soil quality, increase harvest and raise farmers’ income while achieving sustainability.

SU President Wei-Ta Pan said that the school has seen an initial improvement in soil quality through the food waste-transforming method provided by its School of Science, and hopefully the method can be promoted to more places if the two patches of land in Beipu that grow tea and rice respectively yield good experiment results.

Ming-Tseng Zhuang, Head of Beipu Township, believed that the technique would not only increase productivity and drive agricultural development of agriculture, but also fit the concept of friendly production, which has been promoted in Beipu.

Principal of Beipu Elementary School Ying-Chi Wang added that through this practice children can learn the importance of circular economy from an early age and realize that symbiosis with the earth is crucial.

Soochow has been implementing its “Zero Food Waste Plan” since 2021, converting food wastes into soil with good bacteria in 24 hours. This academia-industry collaboration between SU’s Department of Microbiology and the National Science and Technology Council (NSTC) has shown that the soil could function as biological fertilizer and biopesticide at the same time.