Facts, Myths and Future of Brazilian Ethanol (1)

The press is looking for news and once in a while they find a place with poor working conditions. If it looks like a political scandal, they focus all there efforts on it. Once again, we have to quantify. Further correction will take place as all eyes are focussed on the sugarcane industry at the moment, but you cannot expect our records to become as good as in the Netherlands, were there are for instance almost no alliterated people. What we should do is compare Brazil with 15 or 20 sugar and ethanol producing countries. Let’s than quantify it and decide, we are only going to import from the best 5. Eventually, the others will push harder. Regarding the creation of wealth I think Brazil should score very well. In almost all our assessments, the production of sugarcane had a positive contribution. Even the less efficient northeast of Brazil showed economic progress because of the sugarcane.

But of course, we also have some areas that need to improve relatively more. Waste management for instance could be much better. Especially the treatment of vinasse. Most producers comply with legislation, but I am convinced that sooner or later it should not be allowed, because there is evidence that some leakage is going into underground water. As people look for better quality of life, they will complain about waste management, ensuring rapid change. Property and User rights are also a problem, but a general one of the government. It is not because of the ethanol industry, but because of the complexity of the system that the government has in place. It is very difficult to determine who owns a specific piece of land. This is also a problem with soybeans and we should simplify the bureaucracy in order to actually distribute the property certificate to the owners. Lastly, airborne emissions should improve drastically. But there is legislation in São Paulo that pre-harvest fires are to be banned in 2021 for flat land and 2031 for slope areas. It is surprising that the industry communicated through UNICA that they are going to fulfil this condition by 2014. The reason for this is a simple economic effect, since they now realize that they can make a fortune making electricity from bagasse.