- TOWING has opened one of Japan’s largest biochar facilities
- The startup targets heavy reliance on imported fertilisers and oversupply of manure
- The new Gunma plant marks TOWING’s latest scale-up step
The new demonstration plant in Numata City, Gunma Prefecture, will produce TOWING’s proprietary high-performance biochar, using livestock manure compost and other underutilised biomass resources as feedstock.
Unveiled on July 28, the facility is intended to help address two key challenges facing Japanese agriculture: reducing dependence on imported chemical fertilisers and increasing the utilisation of livestock manure compost.
The Gunma site is the company’s third production facility in Japan and fourth globally following previous expansions in Toyohashi, Iwate and Thailand.
It is also TOWING’s largest manufacturing base and its second site equipped with a carbonisation furnace.
Founded in 2020 as a Nagoya University spinout, TOWING develops and markets Soratan, which helps improve the utilisation of nutrients from domestic sources such as compost and organic fertilisers by combining biochar with selected soil microorganisms.
The company has attracted support from major industry players including Suntory Holdings, which has worked with TOWING to convert beverage manufacturing waste into biochar for regenerative agriculture applications.
Tackling manure oversupply
The facility is located in northern Kanto, a region with a significant livestock industry that generates large volumes of manure compost.
According to the TOWING, the area faces challenges related to excess compost production and disposal.
Similar issues have also been a challenge in neighbouring South Korea.
Japan’s agricultural sector remains heavily reliant on imported fertilisers, leaving farmers vulnerable to price volatility and supply disruptions.
By converting livestock manure compost into biochar, the company hopes to create a higher-value agricultural input that is easier to transport and use over a wider geographic area.
TOWING said livestock manure biochar addresses some of the limitations associated with conventional compost, including weight and odour, while enabling easier application using farming machinery.
The company believes the approach can transform a regional waste management challenge into a resource that supports soil improvement and agricultural productivity.
Central to the project is a large-scale continuous carbonisation facility supplied by Noritake, an investor in TOWING.
The system uses the industrial furnace specialist’s heating technology to convert livestock manure, which is typically difficult to carbonise consistently, into high-quality biochar.
According to TOWING, the plant ranks among the largest biochar production facilities in Japan, with planned annual biomass input of 10,000 tonnes.
The project was developed under Japan’s Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries (MAFF) Small and Medium-Sized Enterprise Innovation Creation Promotion Project, also known as the SBIR Phase 3 Fund initiative.
A domestic circular ag system
TOWING CEO Kohei Nishida said the project comes at a time when concerns are growing over Japan’s reliance on imported agricultural inputs.
“With concerns rising about our high reliance on imported fertilisers, and with international circumstances increasing the price of agricultural materials and procurement risks, utilising underutilised domestic resources has become an urgent issue,” Nishida said.
He added that Noritake’s technical support enabled the development of one of Japan’s largest livestock manure carbonisation facilities, while support from Numata City made it possible for the startup to establish its largest production site to date.
