The Socioeconomic Impacts of Sugarcane Ethanol on Agrarian

Reform and Rural Development in Brazil:

Agrofuels, the MST and Food Sovereignty

By Liz Clements

Brazil: Fast Facts

• Population: Approx. 200 million

• Total Area: 8,514,215 km2

• 347 million hectares of arable land (UNICA, 2010)

• One of the world’s top 10 industrial economies

• Over 35 % of the Brazilian population lives in poverty (less than $2/day) (IFAD, 2009)

• It is estimated that close to 90 million people are either landless peasants or live in urban slums

• 3 percent of the population owns 2/3 of all the arable land (MST, 2010)

Agrarian Reform and the MST

• The MST is an agrarian reform movement founded in 1984

• Over 1.5 million members active in 23 out of 27 Brazilian States

• Objectives: to gain access to “land for work,” food sovereignty

• Land occupations, such as those carried out by the MST, are the primary means of access to land for the landless in Brazil

• 1988 Constitution states that all private property, including land must serve a “social function”

• To date, the MST has won land titles for 1,015,918 families on 8,620 agrarian reform settlements across the country (DATALUTA 2010)

• Over 180,000 families are still waiting in land occupations (MST, 2010)

Biofuels to Save the World?Biofuels revolution responds to:

1) Peak Oil2) Desire to reduce dependence on Middle Eastern oil suppliers 3) Global climate change caused primarily by green house gas (GHG)

emissions

Presented as:4) The future route to reducing energy use patterns5) An environmentally friendly, sustainable means to “energy security”3) A “green solution” to climate change4) A new profitability frontier for agribusiness and energy sectors

• A win-win narrative is usually reflected in Europe, the US, and Brazil dominates the framing of the biofuels debate globally

• Biofuels (a catch all phrase) vs . Agrofuels (large scale/industrial/corporate)

• Different types of Biofuels: biodiesel (soy, palm , Jatropha, caster, canola) and ethanol (corn, sugarcane)

• 2 types of ethanol: anhydrous (to mix w/ gas) & hydrated ethanol (for direct use in flex fuel cars)

Source: DIEESE (2007).

World and Brazilian energy matrix: comparison (%)

World, 06/2003 Brazil, 12/2005

Petroleum 34.9 39.7

Coal 23.5 6.5

Natural Gas 21.1 8.7

Renewable Energy 11.4 29.1

Nuclear Energy 6.8 1.5

Hydroelectric 2.3 14.5

Food vs. Fuel DebateIn Defence of AgrofuelsThe proportion of agricultural land given over to producing biofuels in the world is very small . . . and so biofuel production is a marginal factor in the rise of food prices (IFAP, qtd. in Borras and Franco 2010, 5–6)

Against Agrofuels:The current massive wave of investment in energy production based on cultivating and industrial processing of . . . corn, soy, palm oil, sugar cane, canola, etc., will neither solve the climate crisis nor the energy crisis. It will also bring disastrous social and environmental consequences. It creates a new and very serious threat to food production by small farmers and to the attainment of food sovereignty for the world population. It is claimed that agrofuels will help fight climate change. In reality, the opposite is true . . . If we take into account the whole cycle of production, transformation, distribution of agrofuels, they do not produce less greenhouse gases than fossil fuels, except in some cases. Meanwhile, the social and ecological impacts of agrofuel development will be devastating . . . They drive family farmers, men and women, off their land. While TNCs and investment funds increase their profits, a large part of the world population does not have enough money to buy food. Agrofuels are estimated to be responsible for 30 percent of the current [2008] food price crisis. (Via Campesina, qtd. in Borras and Franco 2010, 5–6)

History of Agrofuels in Brazil• Brazil has been producing ethanol since the 1920s

• 1970s PROALCOOL (the National Alcohol Program) was launched

• Second largest producer of ethanol in the world, producing 22.5 billion litres in 2008, or 29% of the world’s total (UNEP, 2009)

• World’s largest ethanol exporter (5.2 billion litres in 2008) (UNEP, 2009)

• Sugarcane production is projected to reach one billion tons by 2020 with expectations of the total planted area to expand from today’s 8.2 million hectares to over 14 million by 2020 (UNICA, 2010).

• In 2007 ethanol represented 51% of total fuel consumption in Brazil and flex- fuel cars represent 90% of the cars sold in 2008 (UNEP 2009)

• Ethanol program often exempted from the central critiques of agrofuels in terms of Efficiency, Contribution to GHG & Impact on Food prices

The Pontal do Paranapanema, São Paulo: A Case Study

São Paulo (SP):• Population: people 39,827,570 (2008)• Brazil’s richest state and major economic and industrial powerhouse• Largest sugarcane and ethanol producing state• The state produced 346,292,969 tonnes of sugarcane in 2008-2009 = 70% of the country’s total annual harvest (569,062,629 tonnes) (UNICA, 2010).• The state produced 16,722,478 thousand litres of ethanol in 2008-2009 = 70% of the total national production (27,506,096 thousand litres)(UNICA, 2010)

Pontal do Paranapanema:• Possesses the greatest potential to accommodate the expansion of sugarcane in the São Paulo state• Area with the most land conflicts in SP• Second poorest region in SP• One of state’s most environmentally devastated regions• 55% of all of Sao Paulo’s agrarian reform settlements are located in the Pontal

Sugarcane planted in São Paulo state during the 2003/2004 and 2008/2009 harvest

years, with the Pontal do Paranapanema region highlighted.