BRAZIL: Ethanol Divides Agribusiness

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 Goias, and it is coming from agribusiness leaders.

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 Perdigao, 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.

IPS Inter Press Service