[sustran] BRAZIL: Ethanol Divides Agribusiness

[Todd Edelman, Green Idea Factory]

*RIO VERDE, Brazil, Sep 8 (IPS/IFEJ) - The expansion of sugarcane 
farming to produce more ethanol in Brazil has run into unexpected 
resistance in Rio Verde, a prosperous town in the central state of 
Goiás, and it is coming from agribusiness leaders.

http://www.ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=39191
*
The local government, of the conservative Progressive Party, decided to 
impose a limit on sugarcane to 10 percent of the municipality's 
farmland. That represents 50,000 hectares, eight times the area already 
planted with sugarcane in Rio Verde, to supply an old distillery that 
produced fuel alcohol, or ethanol.

The measure, demanded by agribusiness leaders, was proposed by Mayor 
Paulo Roberto Cunha and approved unanimously by the municipal Council.

Sugarcane monoculture is "a green tsunami that is breaking the 
agribusiness productive chain" and causes "social tragedies" as well as 
environment problems if it is not controlled, Avelar Macedo, secretary 
of industry and commerce, and promoter of the restrictions, said in an 
interview.

The municipal law, in force since September 2005, also prohibits 
planting sugarcane less than 50 meters from water sources and burning 
sugarcane chaff within 20 kilometres of urban areas, near 
environmentally protected areas or near power lines or highways.

The union of local officials and business leaders defends the 
"diversified activities" that they say led to an average 30-percent 
economic growth in the municipality since 2001, according to the 
Commerce and Industry Association.

Rio Verde has a soybean oil industry, whose by-product, the bran, is 
used as cattle feed. Maize supplies more than 1,600 poultry and hog 
farms, which in turn supply Perdigão, a group that seven years ago set 
up the largest meat processing complex in Latin America and created 
7,600 direct jobs, and 35,000 indirect jobs, according to Macedo.

Sorghum, beans, rice and cotton are other important products for the 
municipality, generating a broad market for tractors, machinery, and 
other farm inputs. Agroindustry has also fomented the production of 
containers -- metal, plastic and cardboard.

The result is a city of 136,000 people without obvious poverty -- nobody 
asking for money on the streets -- and many signs of prosperity, such as 
brisk commercial and banking activity on the main avenue. There are four 
university institutions, which draw students from nearby towns.

This agro-industrial chain, "which adds value locally," is threatened by 
the "euphoria for ethanol," said Macedo. The sugarcane industry does not 
benefit the population because it mainly offers temporary, low-paid 
work, and generally purchases its machinery and inputs from foreign 
suppliers, he explained.

Its expansion poses a threat because the farmers are "decapitalised" by 
low commodity prices and the unfavourable exchange on the dollar in the 
last few years, so they are more vulnerable to offers from sugarcane or 
ethanol producers to rent or buy their land, warned Macedo, who is 
himself a landowner and entrepreneur in the construction and tourism 
sectors.

Sugarcane could bring progress in the northern part of Goiás state, 
where there is an "economic vacuum", but the industry would rather take 
advantage of existing infrastructure in the south, where Rio Verde is 
located, he said.

The law that turned Rio Verde into a national reference point, taken as 
an example by dozens of other municipality governments worried about 
monoculture, is being challenged in court by the Goiás syndicate of 
alcohol manufacturers, SIFAEG.

The group charges that the law is unconstitutional because it violates 
private property rights and infringes on national jurisdiction.

The legal battle likely will last several years, agree both sides.

Sugarcane is grown on 290,000 to 300,000 hectares in Goiás, or just 0.8 
percent of the state's territory, and with maximum expansion predicted 
to reach 2.0 percent, which is less than one-third of the area planted 
with soybeans, says SIFAEG president Igor Montenegro. In the next five 
years, 20 more distilleries could be added to the existing 18 in 
operation, "without threatening the grains".

That expansion would require a small portion of the "immense area that 
could be freed up" by a simple improvement in livestock management, 
which currently covers 57 percent of Goiás territory in 
"low-productivity pastures," he said.

Montenegro hopes to counteract the "unfounded hysteria" among economic 
sectors that have nothing to fear "if they are competitive and 
profitable." The sugarcane agro-industry, he assures, is the one that 
"offers most jobs in agribusiness. One million direct and six million 
indirect" across Brazil. And they are less and less temporary and more 
skilled jobs, with an increasingly mechanised harvest, he added.

In fact, it would not be necessary to deforest areas in order to expand 
cane fields or grain crops in Goiás, agrees Emiliano Godoi, agronomist 
and head of biodiversity and forests for the state's environment 
secretariat. But the tradition is "to open new pastureland" instead of 
recovering the degraded land, which is why sugarcane is pushing the 
agricultural frontier into the forests.

This is a threat to the Cerrado, the savannah of unique forests that 
cover a large part of central Brazil. It is a biome heavily affected by 
agricultural expansion but has received little attention in terms of 
knowledge about it and its conservation.

In Goiás, conservation areas make up just 4.9 percent of state 
territory, "which is very little, but five years ago it was just one 
percent," said Godoi. Furthermore, most municipalities fail to comply 
with legislation that requires maintaining at least 20 percent of land 
with its original, native vegetation intact.

But his concern about sugarcane is "more social than environmental." 
During the harvest season, May to November, the small towns receive a 
flood of cane cutters who come from distant parts of the country, and 
there is a rise in prostitution and unplanned pregnancies.

The burning of cane fields to facilitate cutting pollutes the air, which 
causes respiratory illnesses. The problems accumulate and overburden the 
services of city governments of limited resources, said Godoi.

The pollution from the burning in Goiás is more harmful than the air 
pollution in Sao Paulo state, Brazil's leading producer of sugar and 
alcohol, because the atmosphere of the Cerrado in these months is very 
dry and keeps the concentrated particulate material suspended longer, he 
said. In addition there is the particulate matter from the poor 
sanitation systems in most of the state's cities.

(*This story is part of a series of features on sustainable development 
by IPS-Inter Press Service and IFEJ-International Federation of 
Environmental Journalists.) (END/2007)


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Todd Edelman
Director
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