Brazil EthanolDDI ‘08 KO: Jiajia

Brazil Ethanol

Brazil Ethanol ............................................................................................................................................ 1

Inherency .................................................................................................................................................... 2

Sugar Ethanol Cheap ................................................................................................................................ 4

Plan Unpopular .......................................................................................................................................... 6

Eliminating Tariffs = Good ....................................................................................................................... 7

Replaces Oil .............................................................................................................................................. 10

Sugar Ethanol Good ................................................................................................................................ 12

AT: Amazon Desetruction ...................................................................................................................... 13

AT: Food Prices ....................................................................................................................................... 14

Chavez ....................................................................................................................................................... 15

Hegemony ................................................................................................................................................. 17

Global Warming ...................................................................................................................................... 18

Time Frame Too Long ............................................................................................................................. 19

Ethanol Worse than Oil ........................................................................................................................... 21

Tariff Elimination Inevitable .................................................................................................................. 22

WTO Reclassification Solve Plan ........................................................................................................... 23

Cause Increase in Food Prices ................................................................................................................ 24

Plan Enslaves Workers ............................................................................................................................ 25

Plan Hurts Amazon ................................................................................................................................. 29

Plan Increase Problems ........................................................................................................................... 30

Plan Increases Poverty ............................................................................................................................ 32

Plan Hurts Environment ......................................................................................................................... 33

Plan hurts Food Sovereignty ................................................................................................................... 34

FTAA ........................................................................................................................................................ 35

Plan Expensive ........................................................................................................................................... 36

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Brazil EthanolDDI ‘08 KO: Jiajia

Inherency

U.S. not importing enough ethanol from Brazil nowIsabella Kenfield, associate of the Center for the Study of the America (CENSA) who has just returned from living in Brazil, writes on agribusiness, agrarian conflicts and social movements, published by the Americas Policy Program, 3-6-07, http://americas.irc-online.org/am/4049 [Jiajia]

On Jan. 22 the Lula administration announced it will increase federal funding for Brazil's sugar-based ethanol industry by almost US$6 billion over the next four years. One day later, U.S. President George W. Bush declared in the State of the Union address his goal to reduce U.S. use of gasoline 20% by the year 2017. The general response in Brazil to Bush's announcement was overwhelmingly positive. Luis Fernando Furlan, Minister of Industry, Development, and Commerce, was quoted in the Gazeta Mercantil as saying he received Bush's announcement "with applause." "It is a fantastic business opportunity," Luis Carlos Correa Carvalho, an industry consultant, told Reuters. "We have never had such a great opportunity for the substitution of petroleum." The United States is currently the largest importer of Brazilian ethanol. Last year it imported 1.74 billion liters, or 58% of the total three billion liters that Brazil exported. For the United States to reach Bush's target reduction of gasoline use, the country will need an additional 135 billion liters of ethanol annually. Because it will not be able to produce the entire amount, no doubt a large portion will come from Brazil. Brazil is the global leader in ethanol exports. In 2006, the country exported about 19% of the total 16 billion liters it produced, providing 70% of the world's supply.

Even with current talks, tariff won’t be eliminated Monte Reel, writer for the Washington Post, 2-8-07, “U.S. Seeks Partnership with Brazil on Ethanol,” http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/02/07/AR2007020702316.html [Jiajia]

The tariff is unlikely to be lifted during the current talks. It expires in 2009, and many in the industry believe the government is unlikely to address the issue before a presidential election year."The administration has indicated it would support lifting the tariff, but I think the current inclination is to allow it to expire and have that discussion at a later date," said Brian Dean, head of the private Interamerican Ethanol Commission, which was created in December by then-Florida Gov. Jeb Bush (R) to encourage U.S. ethanol partnerships with Brazil and other Latin American nations.Brazilian industry leaders say the expanding demand for ethanol has resulted in a new understanding that Brazilian sugar growers and American corn growers are not competitors."Up to yesterday, we considered the U.S. corn growers our enemies, and they considered us their enemies," said Eduardo Pereira de Carvalho, president of Brazil's sugar cane growers union. "But we aren't enemies -- we're allies, independent of the tariff issue that has divided us. My government has said to me, 'Aren't you creating competition for us?' I say no."If an agreement between the two countries is signed, both will likely share some of the technological advances each has been pursuing independently. The U.S. Energy Department last year opened two research centers to study how to better derive ethanol from cellulose material -- a development that could turn a wide variety of plants into fuel sources. Brazil, meanwhile, has been conducting similar research, and some in the industry believe pooling sources could lead to quicker breakthroughs.But U.S. officials said the most valuable result of an alliance would be that it would encourage more countries to get involved in production and use of ethanol. This would create an internationally tradable commodity, much like oil is today, Burns said. That would lessen the power that oil has over the region, he said.

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Brazil EthanolDDI ‘08 KO: Jiajia

Tariffs discourage Brazilian sugar ethanolAndrew Downie, writer for the Time, 3-3-07, http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,1596848,00.html [Jiajia]

The U.S. makes its own ethanol from corn and it is reluctant to cede any more advantages to the Brazilians, who have decades of experience producing ethanol and whose sugar cane-based version is three times more efficient than the corn one. Brazil's ethanol is also around a third cheaper to produce. The U.S. levies a $0.54 cent per gallon tariff on Brazilian ethanol and does not give Brazil access to programs such as those Washington provides Caribbean and Central America, which grant nations from the region a special dispensation to export sugar-based ethanol to the U.S. Those exports provide 7% of all ethanol consumed annually in the U.S. American politicians, especially from corn-producing states, are fighting to maintain those barriers, and Bush Administration officials have said the President will not even discuss lowering tariffs in this week's talks with his Brazilian counterpart. That doesn't make sense to Brazilians, and not only because prices of corn and corn-based foodstuffs are rising in the U.S. as producers devote more and more of their crop to fuel rather than food. President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva pointed out that for a country eager to promote free trade such tariffs are a hypocritical barrier to the rapid development of alternative fuel sources. "The high tariff that the United States imposes on ethanol makes no sense," Lula said earlier this week, in a clear message to his visitor. "[The Americans] talk a lot about free trade but they like to protect their own products."

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Brazil EthanolDDI ‘08 KO: Jiajia

Sugar Ethanol Cheap

Brazil ethanol cost effectiveDavid Luhnow, Geraldo Samor, reporters at Wall Street Journal, 1-16-06, The Wall Street Journal, http://yaleglobal.yale.edu/display.article?id=6817 [Jiajia Huang]

RIO DE JANEIRO, Brazil -- After nearly three decades of work, Brazil has succeeded where much of the industrialized world has failed: It has developed a cost-effective alternative to gasoline. Along with new offshore oil discoveries, that's a big reason Brazil expects to become energy independent this year. To see how, take a look at Gildo Ferreira, a 39-year-old real-estate executive, who pulled his VW Fox into a filling station one recent afternoon. Instead of reaching for the gasoline, he spent $29 to fill up his car on ethanol made from sugar cane, an option that's available at 29,000 gas stations from Rio to the Amazon. A comparable tank of gasoline would have cost him $36. "It's cheaper and it's made here in Brazil," Mr. Ferreira says of ethanol. If the price of oil stays at current levels, he can expect to save about $350 a year. [Saving at the Pump] At current prices, Brazil can make ethanol for about $1 a gallon, according to the World Bank. That compares with the international price of gasoline of about $1.50 a gallon. Even though ethanol gets less mileage than gasoline, in Brazil it's still cheaper per mile driven. As a result, ethanol now accounts for as much as 20% of Brazil's transport fuel market. The country's use of gasoline has actually declined since the late 1970s. The use of alternative fuels in the rest of the world is a scant 1%.

Brazil ethanol is cheap and decreases carbon emissionDavid Luhnow, Geraldo Samor, reporters at Wall Street Journal, 1-16-06, The Wall Street Journal, http://yaleglobal.yale.edu/display.article?id=6817 [Jiajia Huang]

Brazil is also fortunate that sugar is the cheapest way to make ethanol and Brazil has the right conditions for growing the crop -- plenty of land, rain and cheap labor. Despite these unique circumstances, Brazil's efforts are being closely followed by countries with big fuel bills. India and China have sent a parade of top officials to see Brazil's program. India, the world's second-biggest sugar producer behind Brazil, mandated in 2003 that nine of its states add a 5% ethanol mixture to gas. The Brazilian unit of Germany's Volkswagen AG, the first car maker to introduce a flex-fuel model in Brazil, has received 38 delegations from more than a dozen countries in the past year alone, VW officials say. Brazil says its ethanol exports will likely double to $1.3 billion in 2010 from $600 million in 2005, largely to Japan and Sweden. These countries hope using ethanol -- which releases less carbon dioxide than fossil fuels -- will help them meet their obligations under the Kyoto Protocol to cut emissions.

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Brazil EthanolDDI ‘08 KO: Jiajia

Brazilian sugar ethanol cheaper than U.S. corn ethanol Associated Press, 3-7-07, http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/17500316/ [Jiajia]

At every gas station in this city of 18 million, drivers can fill up with gasoline or ethanol. Ethanol came courtesy of a 1970s decision by Brazil's former military dictators to subsidize production and require distribution at the pumps.A 1980s Brazilian fad with cars that ran only on ethanol petered out when oil prices fell in the early 1990s. But the fuel came back into vogue in 2003 when automakers started rolling out "flex-fuel" cars that run on gasoline, ethanol or any combination of the two.With international oil prices reaching record highs, Brazilian drivers turned to the cars; most chose ethanol because it costs about half the price of gas.The ethanol industry is now making profits like never before amid heavy foreign investment. Recently, Brazil's state-run oil firm, Japan's Mitsui & Co. and a Brazilian construction firm signed a memorandum of interest to study the construction of a pipeline in Brazil that would be used to help export ethanol to Japan.Brazil is the world's top exporter, though U.S. ethanol production still surpasses Brazil. But Brazil has an edge over the United States for future production because ethanol can be produced more cheaply with sugar cane than the corn used by U.S. farmers to make ethanol.And increased use of corn for ethanol is prompting international corn price increases, prompting Silva to tell reporters last week he would tell Bush, "Why make ethanol out of corn? Why don't we feed the corn to the chickens."Bush has set a goal of 35 billion gallons a year of ethanol and other alternative fuels, such as soybean-based biodiesel, by 2017 — a fivefold increase over current requirements.

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Brazil EthanolDDI ‘08 KO: Jiajia

Plan Unpopular

Plan unpopular – it hurts domestic farmersDavid Luhnow, Geraldo Samor, reporters at Wall Street Journal, 1-16-06, The Wall Street Journal, http://yaleglobal.yale.edu/display.article?id=6817 [Jiajia Huang]

Yet countries wanting to follow Brazil's example may be leery about following its methods. Military and civilian leaders laid the groundwork by mandating ethanol use and dictating production levels. They bankrolled technology projects costing billions of dollars, despite criticism they were wasting money. Brazil ended most government support for its sugar industry in the late 1990s, forcing sugar producers to become more efficient and helping lower the cost of ethanol's raw material. That's something Western countries are loath to do, preferring to support domestic farmers. With government support, sugar companies and auto makers' local units delivered cost-saving breakthroughs. "Flexible fuel" cars running ethanol, gasoline or a mixture of both, have become a hit. Car buyers no longer have to worry about fluctuating prices for either fuel because flex-fuel cars allow them to hedge their bets at the pump. Seven out of every 10 new cars sold in Brazil are flex-fuel.

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Brazil EthanolDDI ‘08 KO: Jiajia

Eliminating Tariffs = Good

Tariff makes importing Brazil’s sugar ethanol to U.S. undesirable David Luhnow, Geraldo Samor, reporters at Wall Street Journal, 1-16-06, The Wall Street Journal, http://yaleglobal.yale.edu/display.article?id=6817 [Jiajia Huang]

The U.S., which currently imports 60% of its oil, is watching Brazil's progress, too. Three members of the Senate Energy Committee recently visited, and Sen. Hillary Clinton has cited Brazil as a role model in cutting dependence on imported oil. When President Bush made a recent stop-over in Brasilia, Brazilian leader Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva hosted a barbecue and described to Mr. Bush how the country has reduced its oil import bill, according to Brazilian officials at the meeting. The most recent U.S. energy bill, signed into law in August, calls for more than doubling ethanol use by 2012. But U.S. ethanol, which is made from corn, costs at least 30% more than Brazil's product, in part because the starch in corn must be first turned into sugar before being distilled into alcohol. It may take the U.S. a few more decades to bring the cost of ethanol down to 80 cents a gallon -- equivalent to Brazil's most efficient producers -- according to the U.S. Department of Energy. U.S. trade barriers make Brazilian ethanol and its sugar expensive to buy. Using carbohydrates instead of fossil-fuels to run cars is not a new idea. Henry Ford's first car was made to run on ethanol. So was the first spark-ignition car engine, developed by German Nicolas Otto in the second half of the 19th century. During World War II, the U.S., Brazil and other nations relied on ethanol to extend gasoline supplies. In the postwar period, however, gasoline was so plentiful and cheap that ethanol lost its allure.

Lower tariffs solve for integration of Brazilian sugar ethanolPR Newswire, 2008,http://www.foxbusiness.com/story/ethanol-fully-integrated-international-trade-according-brailian-sugarcane/ [Jiajia]

SAO PAULO, Brazil, July 25, 2008 /PRNewswire via COMTEX/ ----Access to major markets around the globe for Brazilian sugarcane ethanol with lower tariffs , and full integration of ethanol in global trade, as is the case with any other product: these are the key expectations of the Brazilian Sugarcane Industry Association (UNICA) as the current phase of Doha Round negotiations in Geneva, Switzerland, draws to a close. "What we expect now is full integration for ethanol into global trade. Ethanol should not be treated any differently because currently it is not considered a sensitive product in Europe or the United States," according to UNICA president and CEO, Marcos Sawaya Jank. He adds that World Trade Organization rules are developed for all products, including ethanol, so the idea that a specific product is somehow "outside the list" doesn't exist.

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Brazil EthanolDDI ‘08 KO: Jiajia

Eliminating trade barriers on Brazilian sugar ethanol is a win-win situation for the U.S. and BrazilRobert McFarlane and George Philippidis, President Reagan’s national security advisor; and energy director at Florida International University in Miami, 7-26-08, “How Free Trade Can Help Solve the Energy Crisis,” http://online.wsj.com/article/SB121702724001286291.html?mod=googlenews_wsj [Jiajia]

To quickly boost its biofuel supply, the U.S. should partner with Latin America. Sugarcane ethanol from Brazil, Colombia, Peru and Central America should become an integral part of the U.S. energy strategy. An increase in Latin American cane ethanol capacity is the fastest, most cost-effective and lowest-risk strategy to secure abundant ethanol fuel. The U.S. needs Latin America for energy security, and Latin America needs the U.S. for capital and technology infusion. It's a classic win-win partnership -- provided U.S. trade barriers to sugarcane ethanol are eliminated.Biofuel production is sustainable. The U.S. corn ethanol industry is investing in technology improvements to reduce land demand through higher productivity and to minimize its carbon footprint. Cellulosic ethanol will come from existing waste materials, not additional land.Still, both corn and cellulosic ethanol can learn sustainable business lessons from Brazil. Its sugar mills have become biorefineries that co-produce sugar, ethanol and electricity in a renewable fashion, thus satisfying food, fuel and energy needs at the same time. The plants are self-powered by renewable energy derived from cane fiber and other biomass. As a result, Brazilian ethanol today is cost-competitive with oil at just $70 a barrel ($45 a barrel before the dollar weakened) without government subsidies -- a significant price advantage over gasoline.

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Brazil EthanolDDI ‘08 KO: Jiajia

Elimination of tariff will lead to increase in imports from BrazilDTN Ethanol Center, 7-10-08, Brazil Ethanol Exports to US to Rise, http://www.dtnethanolcenter.com/index.cfm?show=10&mid=72&pid=40

SAO PAULO (Dow Jones) -- Brazil will likely export at least three billion liters -- or about 793 million gallons -- of ethanol to the U.S. this year as a result of soaring ethanol prices in the U.S. and cheap ethanol prices by comparison in Brazil, said commodities risk analyst firm FC Stone on Thursday. The volume could be even higher if not for a $0.54 per gallon import duty imposed on Brazilian ethanol by Washington, FC Stone said in a 29-page monthly sugar and ethanol report from Sao Paulo. Brazilian ethanol is made from sugarcane as opposed to corn ethanol in the U.S. Industry estimates are that Brazilian flex-fuel car owners will consume 18 billion liters of ethanol this season, allowing for an extra seven billion for external markets given current ethanol production estimates for crop year 2008-09. U.S. demand for Brazilian ethanol is on the rise on account of higher corn ethanol prices there and difficulties shipping ethanol from the flooded regions of the Midwest to port states like California and Florida where demand for ethanol is high. Brazil exported a daily average of 20.2 million liters of ethanol to world markets in June, up from 19.6 million in May. Most of it was going to the U.S., according to government figures published July 1 by the Foreign Trade Ministry. In addition, U.S. demand is pushing up ethanol export prices at the Port of Santos, rising to $467.20 per 1,000 liters in June compared to $466.40 in May. Sao Paulo ethanol prices at the pump in June fell 2.9 percent to 1.25 Brazilian reals ($0.77) per liter while prices for U.S. corn ethanol rose 23 percent in June, according to FC Stone's estimates. Average U.S. ethanol prices were $2.95 per gallon compared to $2.40 per gallon in May. In major producer states like Iowa, prices averaged $2.87 per gallon and in Minnesota they were $2.75. The highest prices were in Michigan, where corn ethanol at the pump reached as high as $3.07 per gallon, roughly where U.S. gasoline prices were a year ago. However, with corn prices falling to $6.78 per bushel on the Chicago Board of Trade, that gives ethanol producers up north some profit margins with ethanol prices at $2.70 a gallon and up. With U.S. ethanol prices averaging $2.95 per gallon in June, and corn prices at $6.78 per bushel, U.S. ethanol companies in theory could be making profit margins of $0.33 a gallon, according to FC Stone. "Considering the tax credit blenders get, they still have an advantage of $1.17 per gallon, which is still very attractive and should keep ethanol demand high," FC Stone analysts wrote in the report. U.S. corn ethanol prices are around 37 percent less than gasoline prices, which are averaging around $4.05 per gallon. By comparison, Brazil sugarcane ethanol prices are averaging around 52 percent lower than gasoline, making gasoline the "alternative fuel" for millions of Brazilian car owners. Ethanol is used to fill cars more than gasoline in Brazil's center-south region. Brazil is the world's leading ethanol exporter.

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Brazil EthanolDDI ‘08 KO: Jiajia

Replaces Oil

Ethanol solves for economy shock from oil peak. Brazil empirically proves. David Luhnow, Geraldo Samor, reporters at Wall Street Journal, 1-16-06, The Wall Street Journal, http://yaleglobal.yale.edu/display.article?id=6817 [Jiajia Huang]

The first oil shock in 1973, sparked by an oil embargo amid war in the Middle East, rekindled interest. Months after Syrian and Egyptian tanks rolled into Israeli-held territory, the price of oil quadrupled. Few places were hit harder than Brazil, which imported 80% of its fuel at the time. Within months, Brazil's economy slid into recession. About 40% of its foreign-exchange income was used to import oil. "We faced a clear strategic challenge: How would we develop without oil?" recalls Eduardo Pereira de Carvalho, a finance ministry official at the time who now heads the São Paulo state sugar-growers' federation. In 1975, Brazil's military leader, Gen. Ernesto Geisel, ordered that the country's gasoline supply be mixed with 10% ethanol, a level Brazil steadily raised to 25% over the next five years. That meant the same amount of gasoline would last longer. It also allowed Brazil to pay for fuel with local currency, in the form of payments to farmers. To help the nascent industry, the government gave sugar companies cut-rate loans to build ethanol plants and guaranteed prices for their product. Sugar companies were delighted with the new market, which helped when prices were low. The government also funded Urbano Ernesto Stumpf, an ethanol researcher at a Brazilian Air Force laboratory, who was developing a car that would run on ethanol alone. In November 1976, three ethanol-powered cars created by Mr. Stumpf -- a Beetle, a Dodge and a Brazilian car called a Gurgel -- embarked on a 5,000 mile trip from the air force's research lab in the southeastern state of São Paulo to the northern city of Manaus in the heart of the Amazon. The trip, christened "The National Integration Rally," aimed to demonstrate to Brazilians that ethanol really worked. When the government ordered state-owned companies to test ethanol engines in their fleet, the São Paulo state telephone company converted 400 gasoline cars into ethanol ones. They displayed the logo: "Powered by Alcohol." After the 1979 Iranian revolution caused the world's second oil-price shock, Brazil sped up its efforts, initiating what became known as the Proalcool program. In Brazil, ethanol is called "alcool" (pronounced OWL-coal). Brazil's new leader, Gen. Joao Baptista Figueiredo, ordered sugar companies to ramp up production. He also required state-run oil giant Petrobras to make the fuel available at filling stations. Car companies received tax breaks to get ethanol-powered vehicles into showrooms. By the end of the year, Italian car maker Fiat SpA was offering an ethanol-only car for sale. Within a year, every foreign and domestic auto company in Brazil had followed suit.

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Brazil EthanolDDI ‘08 KO: Jiajia

Eliminating tariffs on Brazilian ethanol will solve our dependence on oilRobert McFarlane and George Philippidis, President Reagan’s national security advisor; and energy director at Florida International University in Miami, 7-26-08, “How Free Trade Can Help Solve the Energy Crisis,” http://online.wsj.com/article/SB121702724001286291.html?mod=googlenews_wsj [Jiajia]

The unprecedented escalation in oil and food prices is a clear and present danger to our economy and national security. The root cause of this crisis is our dependence on a single commodity, oil, for transportation -- we burn 145 billion gallons of gasoline a year. The only permanent solution is diversity in our fuel supply to ensure competition and choice in the marketplace.While a number of alternatives to oil are being developed, we already have one strategic solution at our disposal: biofuels, both domestic and from Latin America.Biofuels like ethanol and biodiesel are cheaper than fossil fuels, and will become even cheaper if we eliminate the senseless tariff on ethanol imports from Brazil. Ethanol can be used safely as a 10% blend with gasoline in all existing cars, and as an 85% blend in the increasing number of flexible-fuel cars on our roads. That means a 10% to 85% potential drop in gasoline use and, hence, freedom from the oil stranglehold.The public has been bombarded with lies and half-truths about biofuels, especially in the last six months. Americans should realize that biofuels are superior to fossil fuels. Biofuels are renewable, nontoxic and biodegradable. They are also beneficial to the automobile engine, the environment and the economy.

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Brazil EthanolDDI ‘08 KO: Jiajia

Sugar Ethanol Good

Brazil sugar ethanol constantly improvingDavid Luhnow, Geraldo Samor, reporters at Wall Street Journal, 1-16-06, The Wall Street Journal, http://yaleglobal.yale.edu/display.article?id=6817 [Jiajia Huang]

The center is located in the heart of Brazil's sugar country, about two hours drive from São Paulo. Giant satellite images of sugar fields help researchers identify which variety will grow best in which part of the country, where to locate new fields and the best time to harvest. Over the past 20 years, the center has developed some 140 varieties of sugar, which has helped lower growing costs by more than 1% a year, according to Jaime Finguerut, the center's director of ethanol research. Other improvements include using remains of processed cane to power sugar and ethanol plants, and using industrial waste from ethanol production to fertilize sugar fields. As a result, the productivity of Brazil's ethanol producers has steadily increased. In 1975, Brazil squeezed 2,000 liters, or about 520 gallons, of ethanol from a hectare, or nearly 2.5 acres, of sugar cane. Today, it's nearly 6,000 liters. As gasoline prices soared in recent years, ethanol rebounded. By 2002, its price was again competitive with gasoline and old ethanol-only cars started recovering their prestige. Last year, thieves stole an ethanol-only, 1994 Ford Royale, owned by Francisco Baccaro Nigro, one of the engineers who helped develop ethanol-only cars. "I'm sure it's because ethanol is cheaper," Mr. Nigro says. "Thieves know this."

Increasing import of Brazilian sugar ethanol is advantageous Raúl Zibechi, member of the Editorial Council of the weekly Brecha de Montevideo, a professor and investigator of social movements at the Multiversidad Franciscana de América Latina, and an adviser to various social groups, 3-7-07, http://americas.irc-online.osrg/am/4051 [Jiajia]

The choice of Brazil and Latin America as supply sources for ethanol has several advantages. A report of the Inter-American Development Bank claims that Brazilian ethanol is competitive if the price of oil per barrel is over US$40. The oil price must be over US$60 a barrel for U.S. ethanol to be competitive and US$80 in the case of European ethanol.6 Brazil is five times more efficient converting sugarcane into ethanol than U.S. companies that use corn as the prime material. While biofuels account for just 1% of world fuel consumption for transportation and the substitution of oil-based fuels is only 1.8% in the United States, in Brazil it reaches 20%. The IDB report cited above establishes that Latin America is one of the regions with the most potential to offer biofuels given its climatic advantages combined with low population density. A large part of Brazil's advantages derive from the climate and the availability of land, something that the IDB considers "Brazil's exceptionalism." The developed countries do not have enough land to cover demand for crops to make ethanol. With barely 1.5% of its land sown, Brazil could entirely replace gasoline with ethanol. The United States on the other hand, would have to convert half of its total corn production to ethanol in order to implement a mixture of 10% ethanol to gasoline. That would mean dedicating 15% of its agricultural land. To meet the 20% benchmark Bush set in his State of the Union address, the nation has to look South.

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Brazil EthanolDDI ‘08 KO: Jiajia

AT: Amazon Desetruction

Brazil makes clearing rainforests illegalMongabay, 7-1-08, “Brazil fines 24 ethanol producers for illegal forest clearing, http://news.mongabay.com/2008/0701-brazil.html [Jiajia]

Brazil fined two dozen ethanol producers accused of illegal clearing the country's endangered Mata Atlântica or Atlantic rainforest, reports The Associated Press. The companies face 120 million reals (US$75 million) in fines for operating without licenses and planting sugarcane in illegally deforested areas, Environment Minister Carlos Minc said in a press conference. The firms will be required to restore 143,300 acres (58,000 hectares) of forest. "We will not let companies that destroy the Atlantic rain forest have any peace," Minc told reporters. "If these environmental crimes continue, they will provide ammunition for those who want to slap trade barriers on the export of Brazilian ethanol." The fines come shortly after a group of Brazilian ethanol firms signed the first deal to export sustainably-produced ethanol. The deal, announced last week, will send to Sweden 115 million liters of to meet to certain social and environmental standards. The Brazilian soy and beef industries have recently announced similar certification initiatives. In recent months Brazilian authorities have cracked down on loggers, ranchers, farmers, and charcoal producers believed to be operating in violation of environmental laws. Last week agents seized 3,100 head of cattle found grazing on illegally deforested lands in the Amazon. Minc said the cattle would be auctioned to fund Fome Zero, the government's food program for the poor. Earlier this year the government conducted operation "Arc of Fire" to stop illegal logging on the Amazon frontier.

Amazon deforestation concerns exaggeratedKelly Hearn, independent journalist, former UPI staff worker in Latin America, correspondent to National Geographic News, The Christian Science Monitor, foreign political correspondent for the Washington Times, recipient of 2006 Samuel Chavkin Grant for Investigative Journalism, 2-8-07, National Geographic News, http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2007/02/070208-ethanol_2.html [Jiajia]

Sugarcane industry officials, however, say deforestation concerns are overblown. Carvalho Macedo of Brazil's National Sugarcane Agro-Industry Union says wildlands will not have to be plowed under, because Brazil has 200 million acres (809,000 hectares) of pasturelands available to absorb sugarcane growth. "You don't need more than 5 percent of that land to reach production levels imagined for ten years from now," Macedo said. Macedo said Brazil's current sugarcane production takes place on roughly 14.8 million acres (6 million hectares)—less than one percent of the country's total land dedicated to farming. São Paulo state environment secretary Goldemberg writes in Science that "worldwide, some 49 million acres (20 million hectares) are used for growing sugarcane, mostly for sugar production. "A simple calculation shows that expanding the Brazilian ethanol program by a factor of ten [in Brazil and other countries] … would supply enough ethanol to replace 10 percent of the gasoline used in the world. "This land area is a small fraction of the more than 1 billion hectares [2.5 billion acres] of primary crops already harvested on the planet."

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Brazil EthanolDDI ‘08 KO: Jiajia

AT: Food Prices

Many alternate causalities to food price increaseAndrew Downie, Correspondent of The Christian Science Monitor, 5-5-08, http://www.csmonitor.com/2008/0505/p04s01-woam.html [Jiajia]

SÃO PAULO, Brazil - – Brazil, the world's biggest ethanol exporter, is bristling over criticism of its biofuel. As wheat, rice, and corn prices rise sharply, critics say producing fuel for cars is taking precedence over food for people. "Ethanol has certainly become the scapegoat for a variety of issues, in particular the current price of food," says Toni Nuernberg, the executive director of the Omaha, Neb.-based Ethanol Promotion and Information Center. "But there is a collection of factors responsible: Drought, population growth, higher demand for protein [i.e., meat] from developing countries, and transportation costs." President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva says the bad publicity is unwarranted and uninformed. Many biofuel experts agree. Critics, they say, fail to distinguish between the different kinds of ethanol. Brazilian ethanol from sugar cane is up to eight times more energy efficient to produce than ethanol derived from corn, beets, wheat, or other temperate crops. And Brazilian officials point out that there's plenty of sugar. Brazilian sugar production has doubled since the end of the last decade and is expected to grow by another 50 percent by 2021, says Marcos Jank, the president of Unica, the Brazilian Sugar Cane Industry Association. There is more than enough sugar on the market and so no land is being taken for fuel rather than food, he adds. "Food versus fuel is not an issue in Brazil," Mr. Jank says. "Sugar prices today are depressed because there is too much production."

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Brazil EthanolDDI ‘08 KO: Jiajia

Chavez

Alliance with Brazil on ethanol will counter Chavez’s influenceRaúl Zibechi, member of the Editorial Council of the weekly Brecha de Montevideo, a professor and investigator of social movements at the Multiversidad Franciscana de América Latina, and an adviser to various social groups, 3-7-07, http://americas.irc-online.osrg/am/4051 [Jiajia]

George W. Bush's trip to Latin America this month is the most ambitious attempt to reposition the United States in the region since the Free Trade Agreement of the Americas died in Mar del Plata in November of 2005. The trip, which includes Brazil, Uruguay, Mexico, Guatemala, and Colombia has a dual purpose: to counteract the growing influence of Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez in the region and to form a strategic alliance with Brazil for the production of ethanol. Although it may not appear on the surface, the two objectives are profoundly related. "We have 80 million hectares in the Amazon that are going to be converted into the Saudí Arabuia of biodiesel," affirmed the Brazilian engineer Expedito Parente to the newspaper O Globo. Parente knows what he's talking about—he is the owner of the first patent registered in the world for the industrial production of biodiesel. In 1977, when he was a professor at the University of Ceará, he conceived of his project based on the use of oleaginosas such as soybeans and the mamona plant. Today Brazil is the number-one producer of ethanol in the world, alongside the United States, and the two nations are poised to consolidate an alliance that will assure Brazil's position as regional leader and global power. In some ways, Bush's visit—preceded by those of Under-Secretary of State Nicholas Burns, and head of Western Hemisphere Affairs Thomas Shannon—represents a major recognition of Brazil's clout in the region. The cost of the alliance can be measured in terms of its environmental and social impact. It assumes the destruction of the Amazon and the ruin of millions of small farmers. But it is also a call to re-route North-South relations in the Americas. The second objective of Bush's tour March 8-14 relates to the need to control the spreading influence of Hugo Chávez. Chávez already has strong allies in Bolivian President Evo Morales and the Ecuadorian Rafael Correa. On what is his most important tour of the region in the past six years, Bush will also visit two small countries: Guatemala, where September elections could bring to power the indigenous leader Rigoberta Menchú, and Uruguay, a country that has shown interest in negotiating a bilateral trade agreement with the United States. In Colombia, with his friend Alvaro Uribe, Bush will seek to strengthen Plan Colombia given Correa's recent announcement that Ecuador will not renew the agreement to allow the U.S. military base in Manta—a key piece of the Pentagon's strategy in the region. Both objectives converge on one point: to use Brazil to consolidate a strategic alliance that seeks to isolate Venezuela and the countries that follow its policies of Latin American unity as a counterbalance to U.S. hegemony. This appears to be, for the Bush administration, the best way of gaining a new foothold in the region. In Search of Energy Autonomy

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Eliminating sugar tariff will solve Brazil-U.S. relations, which are key to counteracting Chavez.Monte Reel, writer for the Washington Post, 2-8-07, “U.S. Seeks Partnership with Brazil on Ethanol,” http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/02/07/AR2007020702316.html [Jiajia]

"It's clearly in our interests -- Brazil's and the United States's -- that we expand the global market for biofuels, particularly ethanol, and that it become a global commodity of sorts," said R. Nicholas Burns, the U.S. undersecretary of state, who led discussions with Brazilian government officials on Wednesday.For the United States, the initiative is more than purely economic. Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez has exploited regional frustrations with the market-driven economic prescriptions that the United States has promoted throughout the region for years, and he has used oil revenue to promote several regional economic alliances.Burns declared that biofuel is now the "symbolic centerpiece" of U.S. relations with Brazil, a country that U.S. officials have long hoped could counteract Venezuela's regional anti-American influence."Energy has tended to distort the power of some of the states we find to be negative in the world -- Venezuela, Iran -- and so the more we can diversify our energy sources and depend less on oil, the better off we will be," Burns said at a news conference in Sao Paulo.Brazil, the world's largest exporter of ethanol, has been a leader in biofuel technology after its government invested heavily in the ethanol industry in the 1970s. Its sugar cane-based ethanol is more efficient to produce than the corn-based fuel made in the United States. To date, ethanol has replaced about 40 percent of Brazil's non-diesel gasoline consumption. More than 70 percent of the vehicles now sold in Brazil are flex-fuel models that run on either ethanol or gas, and the number continues to increase.Although the United States has surpassed Brazil in the total amount of ethanol produced, its producers cannot keep up with surging demand. Last year, the United States produced about 4.9 billion gallons and imported an additional 1.7 billion gallons, mostly from Brazil.U.S. production is expected to sharply increase as new production facilities are finished this year, but demand is expected to surge as well. Bush has called for a 20 percent reduction in gasoline consumption by 2017, which would require an estimated 35 billion gallons of alternative fuels to bridge the gap.The United States currently places a 54-cent-a-gallon tariff on most imported ethanol. Brazilian producers have long labeled the tariff hypocritical, saying that it is exactly the kind of trade barrier that U.S. officials oppose in other countries.

U.S. and Brazil ethanol trade relations would decrease Chavez’s powerDavid Jackson, writer for USA Today, 3-2-07, http://www.usatodsay.com/news/world/2007-03-01-us-brazil-ethanol_x.htm [Jiajia]

First, expanding world ethanol markets would help the USA and other nations reduce their dependence on foreign oil. Also, reduced demand for oil might reduce the clout of Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez, who has tried to use his nation's oil reserves to undercut U.S. policies in the region.The USA and Brazil produce more than 70% of the world's ethanol; the U.S. supply comes mainly from corn, while Brazil taps its abundant sugarcane crop.

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Hegemony

Increasing Brazilian sugar ethanol imports will solve U.S. hegemony and trade relationsRaúl Zibechi, member of the Editorial Council of the weekly Brecha de Montevideo, a professor and investigator of social movements at the Multiversidad Franciscana de América Latina, and an adviser to various social groups, 3-7-07, http://americas.irc-online.osrg/am/4051 [Jiajia]

Political objectives also come into play in Washington's move to cement the ethanol alliance. A long-term alliance that projects Brazil as a global player, which is the objective of the Lula government, would allow the United States to recuperate the hegemonic role that it has been losing over the past years. Washington cannot consolidate its hegemony only through military measures like Plan Colombia. It also needs to win over groups of leaders like those in the Lula government and important and dynamic business groups like those that have flourished in Brazil and especially in São Paulo. Jeb Bush was very clear about this, stating that biofuels can strengthen the relationship between the United States and Latin America "serving as a catalyst to remove barriers to free trade within the region." The executive director of the Inter-American Ethanol Commission, Brian Dean, went even further, stating that ethanol can accomplish what the FTAA failed to do.

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Global Warming

Importing Brazilian sugar ethanol will reduce global warmingKelly Hearn, independent journalist, former UPI staff worker in Latin America, correspondent to National Geographic News, The Christian Science Monitor, foreign political correspondent for the Washington Times, recipient of 2006 Samuel Chavkin Grant for Investigative Journalism, 2-8-07, National Geographic News, http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2007/02/070208-ethanol_2.html [Jiajia]

In Brazil ethanol has become economically competitive with gasoline, and the country's biofuels program could serve as a world model for producing sustainable energy, officials say. South America's largest country is the world's reigning ethanol king, producing 4.4 billion gallons (16.5 billion liters) of the biofuel from sugarcane each year, on average. Biofuel is widely considered a way to reduce greenhouse gases from fossil fuel use and thereby reduce human-caused global warming. (Related news: "Global Warming "Very Likely" Caused by Humans, World Climate Experts Say" [February 2, 2007].) Brazil's sugarcane-based ethanol program is "appropriate for replication in many countries," writes José Goldemberg, secretary of the environment for the Brazilian state of São Paulo, in a perspective article in this week's issue of the journal Science.

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Time Frame Too Long

Even with incentives, plan will take decades to possibly solveAssociated Press, 3-13-06, “Brazil Is World's Ethanol Superpower”http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2006/03/13/tech/main1394254_page2.shtml [Jiajia]

(AP) In an agroindustrial complex ringed by fields of 12-foot-high sugar cane, a giant mechanical claw dumps stalks by the tons into an even larger crushing machine. Here's where the renewable fuel used to power seven of every 10 new Brazilian cars gets its start. Sugary slurry flows into a row of gleaming stainless steel distilling tanks, transforming cane harvested only hours earlier by machete-wielding farm laborers into ethanol, the alternative fuel now promoted by President Bush to end what he calls America's addiction to imported oil. While Mr. Bush set 2025 as the target date for replacing three-fourths of the oil imported from the Middle East with American ethanol, Brazil already satisfies nearly half of its domestic passenger vehicle fuel demand with ethanol. After decades of government intervention and subsidies, the industry here is a thriving free market business, complete with ethanol pumps at every filling station in Latin America's largest country. Millions of cars run on either ethanol, gas or any combination of the two. And there's plenty more land available for sugar cane cultivation as the planet's biggest sugar producer gears up to become its undisputed long-term ethanol supplier. Brazilian ethanol producers and international energy experts agree that the United States will probably never come close to reaching Brazil's potential as an ethanol superpower. But they say Brazil offers clear lessons on how to boost domestic ethanol use. What the United States needs most, they say, are more cars that run on the fuel — and filling stations that offer it. "Petroleum is almost history," warned Celso dos Santos, commercial director of the Cocamar farmers cooperative that owns the Sao Tome distillery. "People stopped using wood for fuel and replaced it with coal. Then came petroleum, but we're getting to the end of the petroleum era." With the sickly scent of pure alcohol wafting through the air around the Cocamar plant, a thousand workers toil around the clock during the March to November cane harvest season, distilling 92,500 gallons of ethanol daily that is trucked away for immediate sale at the pumps. Sugarcane waste is burned to generate steam for the turbines, meeting all the plant's electricity needs. Excess power will soon light up half the homes in Sao Tome, a southern Brazilian town of 6,000 people. The technology isn't even cutting edge, but the industry is making profits like never before and has a bright future thanks to a 1970s decision by Brazil's former military dictators to subsidize ethanol production and require distribution at every gas station. A 1980s Brazilian fad with cars that ran only on ethanol petered out when oil prices fell in the early 1990s. But the fuel came back into vogue in 2003, when automakers started rolling out cars that run on gasoline, ethanol or any combination of the two. With international oil prices reaching record highs, Brazilian drivers turned to "flex-fuel" cars, buying ethanol at half the price of gas until late last year. Some experts predict flex-fuel car sales will reach 90 percent of Brazil's new car market within several years, while others say recent ethanol price hikes could keep penetration at the current level. Getting a fraction of that acceptance in the United States could take decades, analysts say, even with new incentives and regulations. "Since the government does not dictate what happens in the marketplace, the process will be much slower than what Brazil experienced," said Amani Elobeid, an economist and international sugar analyst at Iowa State University. A small but growing percentage of American-made vehicles are manufactured to run on the U.S. version of ethanol called E85, which is 85 percent alcohol distilled from corn and 15 percent gasoline. But many American drivers don't even know their vehicles can run on E85, and the fuel is available at only 610 American filling stations. Brazil's state-imposed pump price for gasoline includes much higher taxes than the price U.S. consumers pay. Gas in Brazil now costs the equivalent of $4.69 per gallon. Pure ethanol — taxed at slightly lower levels and cheaper to produce — goes for about $3.59 per gallon at all of the nation's 30,000 stations. It fueled 48 percent of Brazil's passenger vehicles last year. Meanwhile, Brazil is trying to encourage ethanol use in countries from Asia to Europe. President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva said in Britain this week that Brazil wants "to plant the oil of the future" and promote radical changes in how world generates energy. Brazilian ethanol makers intent on boosting exports have been beaming ever since Mr. Bush used his January State of the

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Union address to plug ethanol. "We felt that in our share price," said a smiling Paulo Diniz, chief financial officer of Grupo Cosan, Brazil's largest ethanol producer and the world's second largest after the U.S.-based Archer Daniels Midland Co. A few years ago, Cosan was lucky to host a tour every four or five months for big foreign investors. Now the firm gets visits every two weeks, including a VIP tour in February for Google Inc. billionaires Larry Page and Sergey Brin. Cosan is considering an initial public offering on Wall Street within the next year and a half, Diniz said. Other foreign companies may consider jumping on the bandwagon by buying Brazilian ethanol firms. "Phones have been ringing all over the world after Mr. Bush spoke," said Cristoph Berg, an ethanol analyst with Germany's F.O. Licht, a commodities research firm. Investors "are waking up to the notion that ethanol really seems to have entered the mainstream." Brazil's ethanol experience hasn't been so rosy for consumers in recent months. Prices surged during the annual November-March production lull while the cane grew. Ethanol remains cheaper than gas, but flex-fuel car drivers can get better fuel efficiency with gas when the price difference between the two narrows significantly. In Sao Tome, the cooperative that owns the ethanol distillery is betting on its best profits since it bought the operation in 1993. Cocamar's production cost is $1.10 per gallon, and wholesalers are buying the fuel for $2.68— up from $1.44 last year. About the only thing that could hurt Brazil's ethanol industry now would be an almost unimaginable plunge in international crude oil prices, currently trading above $60 per barrel, said Almir Hawthorne, the distillery's industrial manager. "Oil could drop to $35 or $40 per barrel, and ethanol producers would still make money."

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Ethanol Worse than Oil

Ethanol doesn’t work as efficiently as oil David Luhnow, Geraldo Samor, reporters at Wall Street Journal, 1-16-06, The Wall Street Journal, http://yaleglobal.yale.edu/display.article?id=6817 [Jiajia Huang]

The cars were hard to start on cold mornings because ethanol burns at a higher temperature than gasoline. Creating a fuel with 10% ethanol makes little difference to a car's performance, but anything above that, researchers have found, can cause problems. The mixture can corrode metal engine parts because of its high water content, for example.

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Tariff Elimination Inevitable

Tariff cuts inevitablePR Newswire, 2008,http://www.foxbusiness.com/story/ethanol-fully-integrated-international-trade-according-brailian-sugarcane/ [Jiajia]

According to Jank, ethanol producers in Brazil expect to see significant cuts in ethanol tariffs. "We're not talking about quotas as some have been suggesting, but tariff cuts duly calculated using the formula already agreed to by negotiators. The formula should simply be applied and the new, reduced tariff, adopted," he said. As is the case with all agricultural products, European and American tariffs imposed on imported ethanol will have to be reduced once the formula is applied. According to the WTO, tariffs between 20% and 50% (the range covering EU tariffs on ethanol) must be reduced 57% while tariffs between 50% and 75% (the range covering ethanol tariffs charged in the United States) should be cut by 64%. Five years after these cuts are implemented, the EU tariff should come down from 19.2 euros per hectolitre to 8.25 euros per hectolitre, while the American tariff should end up at 0.9% + 19.5 cents per gallon, down from 2.5% + 54 cents per gallon. Jank considers tariff reductions the ideal option, but if negotiators in Geneva choose to classify ethanol as a sensitive product and conclude there is room to create new quotas, compensation will be necessary. "If the ministers decide to accept new sensitive products, we want compensation to be significant, far higher than the 1.75 billion litres per year that could be exported to Europe under a proposal mentioned by EU trade chief Peter Mandelson." Specifically in the case of the United States, Jank repeated that full integration of ethanol as a product is expected, along with cuts to both tariffs that currently exis t -- an "ad valorem" tax and a secondary tax. According to Jank, to contain rising global commodity prices, it is essential to streamline global trade in ethanol. Ideally, this would spare major ethanol consuming countries with restricted production capacity, where ethanol production may compete with food production, from facing the types of problems that have surfaced in recent months. A reduction in both European and U.S. tariffs on imported ethanol will allow for greater imports by industrialized countries of ethanol produced from more efficient feedstocks, which would benefit developing nations that produce ethanol from such feedstocks while reducing dependence on fossil fuels and forcing down gasoline prices. Marcos Jank will be in Geneva as of the morning of Saturday, July 26, to follow the final stages of the current set of

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WTO Reclassification Solve Plan

WTO reclassification of ethanol would solve trade barriersPetroleum World, 7-24-08, Brazil looks to WTO talks to boost biofuel exports, http://www.petroleumworld.com/story08072404.htm [Jiajia]

Brazil said Wednesday it hoped to gain better market access for exports of ethanol to the United States and Europe as part of global trade talks here but is facing resistance from Washington."Ethanol should be part of a deal this week," said Carlos Conzendey, head of the economic department at the Brazilian Foreign Ministry."For the moment, the United States has said 'no'," he told AFP.Brazil is one of the world's leading ethanol producers, with the bulk of its production going to its domestic market as fuel or additive for gasoline.The country wants the World Trade Organization and its members to classify ethanol as an environmental product rather than an agricultural product, which would give it greater access to export markets.The WTO has convened a meeting here of 30 leading trade negotiators this week with the aim of mapping out a deal to conclude the long-delayed Doha round of global trade talks.The Doha round began seven years ago with the aim of helping poor countries, but it has been delayed by disputes between developed and developing nations over subsidies and tariffs for farm and industrial products.Brazil is a powerful representative of emerging countries in the negotiations."Brazil produces 15 billion litres of ethanol per year, and only 3-5 billion are exported," Conzdendey said."The export potential is immense," added another Brazilian diplomat who did not wish to be named.Earlier this year, Brazil's agriculture ministry forecast that ethanol production was expected to rise by 15 and 19 percent from 2007, an increase of up to 27,400 million litres.

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Cause Increase in Food Prices

Biofuels cause soaring food pricesPetroleum World, 7-24-08, Brazil looks to WTO talks to boost biofuel exports, http://www.petroleumworld.com/story08072404.htm [Jiajia]

Of that, ethanol exports are forecast to reach 4.2 billion litres, up from the current 3.4 billion litres a year.Brazil's bid comes at a time when the tide of public opinion and policy is turning against biofuels.Initially hailed as a weapon in the fight against global warming, they are now cited by United Nations agencies, the World Bank and non-government organisations as one of the causes of soaring global food prices.The Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) said earlier this month that it favoured a moratorium on expanding biofuel production, following the release of a report critical of vegetable-based fuels.The OECD found that in most countries the biofuel sector was heavily subsidised, through budgetary support, requirements that biofuels represent a certain share of the market for transport fuels and protectionist trade restrictions.The US is the world leader in ethanol output, accounting for 48 percent of worldwide production last year, ahead of Brazil at 31 percent, according to the OECD.The EU is responsible for about 60 percent of global biodiesel production, based on oils such as rapeseed and canola.

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Plan Enslaves Workers

Brazilian sugar ethanol industry treats workers like slaves Tom Phillips, writer for the Guardian, 3-9-07, http://www.commondreams.org/headlines07/0309-08.htm [Jiajia]

Behind rusty gates, the heart of Brazil's energy revolution can be found in the stale air of a squalid red-brick tenement building. Inside, dozens of road-weary migrant workers are crammed into minuscule cubicles, filled with rickety bunk-beds and unpacked bags, preparing for their first day at work in the sugar plantations of Sao Paulo.This is Palmares Paulista, a rural town 230 miles from Sao Paulo and the centre of a South American renewable energy boom that is transforming Brazil into a global reference point on how to cut carbon emissions and oil imports at the same time.Inside the prison-like construction are the cortadores de cana - sugar cane cutters - part of a destitute migrant workforce of about 200,000 men who help prop up Brazil's ethanol industry.Biofuels are mega-business in Brazil. Such has been the success of the country's ethanol programme - launched during the 1970s military dictatorship - that it is now attracting attention from around the world. Yesterday President George Bush arrived in Sao Paulo to announce an "ethanol alliance" with his Brazilian counterpart, Luiz Inacio "Lula" da Silva. The bilateral agreement has been touted by the Brazilian media as the first step towards the creation of an "ethanol OPEC".Last year sugar and alcohol were Brazil's second biggest agricultural export products, worth an estimated $8bn (£4bn). Producers, meanwhile, expect the country's sugar cane production to jump by 55% in the coming six years, largely because of growing demand from the US and Europe. They hope that closer trade ties with the US in particular will help accelerate the ethanol industry's growth, providing jobs and funding the construction of dozens of new processing plants in the region.But drive to the outskirts of Palmares Paulista and a much bleaker picture emerges of what President Lula has dubbed Brazil's "energy revolution". On one side, thick green plantations of sugar cane stretch out as far as the eye can see; on the other lopsided red-brick shacks crowd together, home to hundreds of impoverished workers who risk life and limb to provide the local factories with sugar cane.Economic refugees fleeing the country's arid and impoverished north-east, these men earn as little as 400 reais (£100) a month to provide the raw material that is fuelling this energy revolution.Palmares Paulista is both a burgeoning agricultural town and a social catastrophe. "They arrive here with nothing," said Valeria Gardiano, who heads the social service department in Palmares, a town of 9,000 whose population swells each year with the influx of between 4,000 and 5,000 migrant workers."They have the clothes on their bodies and nothing else. They bring their children with malnutrition, their ill mothers-in-law. We try to reduce the problem. But there is no way we can fix it 100%. It is total exploitation," she said.Activists go even further. They say the "cortadores" are effectively slaves and complain that Brazil's ethanol industry is, in fact, a shadowy world of middle men and human rights abuses."They come here because they are forced from their homes by the lack of work," said Francisco Alves, a professor from nearby Sao Carlos University who has spent more than 20 years studying Sao Paulo's migrant workforce. "They will do anything to get by."That includes working 12-hour shifts in scorching heat and earning just over 50p per tonne of sugar cane cut, before returning to squalid, overcrowded "guest houses" rented to them at extortionate prices by unscrupulous landlords, often ex-sugar cutters themselves.Faced with exhausting work in temperatures of over 30C (86F), some will die. According to Sister Ines Facioli, from the Pastoral do Migrante, a Catholic support network based in nearby Guariba, 17 workers died between 2004 and 2006 as a result of overwork or exhaustion.But the annual exodus from the northeast continues, and as foreign investment in the ethanol industry increases the numbers are expected to grow further.

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Brazilian ethanol industry encourages labor exploitation and povertyIsabella Kenfield, associate of the Center for the Study of the America (CENSA) who has just returned from living in Brazil, writes on agribusiness, agrarian conflicts and social movements, published by the Americas Policy Program, 3-6-07, http://americas.irc-online.org/am/4049 [Jiajia]

Brazilian ethanol is produced from sugarcane, which has always been a primary agricultural commodity for the country. Because ethanol relies on sugarcane as its primary material, the industry is linked to the social and economic dynamics in rural areas that have developed from sugarcane production since the colonial era, most importantly labor exploitation and land concentration. According to Marluce Melo of the Pastoral Land Commission (CPT) in the northern Brazilian city of Recife, Pernambuco, "Rural poverty has always been intrinsically related to the economy of sugarcane. Even in the 1970s, when Pernambuco was the largest national producer of sugarcane, the levels of poverty were amongst the highest in the world." In many ways, things have changed little on the sugarcane plantations since colonial times. "The problems with [sugarcane's] production today are very similar to the problems it generated hundreds of years ago," says Maisa Mendonça, Director of the São Paulo-based NGO Rede Social. Sugarcane fieldworkers endure some of the hardest labor in the world. According to Mendonça, Brazil has the lowest cost of production in the world because of the industry's dependence on labor exploitation, including massive slave labor, and its refusal to implement environmental regulations. In São Paulo the cost of production is US$165 per ton; in Europe it is US$700 per ton. I n São Paulo the median monthly salary for a field laborer on a sugar cane plantation is US$195; in Pernambuco it is US$167. It is estimated that 40,000 seasonal migrant laborers from the Northeast and Minas Gerais state work in the annual harvest in São Paulo. They work long hours in extremely hot temperatures, cutting as fast as they can because their pay is based on the weight of their cuttings. Maria Aparecida de Morães Silva, at the State University of São Paulo, reports that the required rate of productivity for cane cutters is increasing. In the 1980s, the average rate of productivity demanded of an individual cutter was between five and eight tons of sugarcane cut per day; today it is between 12 and 15 tons. From 2004 to 2006, the Pastoral of Migrants registered 17 deaths from excessive labor in São Paulo, and in 2005 the state's Regional Delegation of Labor registered 416 deaths of workers in sugar-based ethanol production.

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Brazilian sugar ethanol industry exploits workersJohn Rumsey and Jonathan Wheatley, cofounder of Aquilo Partners; and television presenter for BBC World, 5-20-08, http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/f94f04e2-2698-11dd-9c95-000077b07658.html [Jiajia]

Luís Oliveira and his gang get up at dawn to take a rickety bus to Fazenda Agua Doce, a sugarcane farm in central São Paulo state where the heat regularly tops 40 degrees. They cut the cane by hand with a machete-like tool, the podão, the design of which has not moved on much since its invention. Water breaks are short and food meager and unappetising. Such conditions have prompted a barrage of criticism from the European Union that Brazil, the world’s largest ethanol exporter, is a nest of poor labour and environmental practices. The criticism, and the €0.19 ($0.29, £0.15) per litre tariffs which the EU imposes on Brazilian ethanol, is damaging for an industry which Brazil hopes to promote as a green alternative to fossil fuels. Stavros Dimas, EU environmental commissioner, said recently that planned EU biofuel quotas should be subservient to “environmental and social concerns”, prompting threats from the Brazilian foreign ministry to appeal on the issue to the World Trade Organisation. A Brazilian foreign ministry official also warned earlier this month that the government would consider WTO action if the US enacts a farm bill continuing tariffs of $0.54 (€0.34, £0.27) a gallon on ethanol imports and keeping tax credits to US ethanol blenders at a slightly reduced rate of $0.45 a gallon. That bill is now almost certain to become law after passing both houses of Congress with overwhelming majorities.Brazilians say criticisms of the country’s farming practices are often a poorly disguised attempt to protect domestic industries. “What social and environmental standards does the EU impose on current energy suppliers such as Nigeria, Venezuela, Iran and Iraq?” asks Ingo Plöger, ex-chairman of the regional Mercosur-EU forum. But the government has signalled a willingness to negotiate with the EU, and partly in response to the criticism that São Paulo state – which accounts for close to 80 per cent of national production – is legislating to improve conditions and eliminate manual cutting over the next four years. Mechanisation, however, is not welcomed by most of the 300,000 cane-field workers, for whom it spells limited negotiating power for salary rises now and the prospect of unemployment soon. Elio Neves, president of the Federation of Rural Employees of São Paulo in Araraquara, close to Fazenda Agua Doce in the heart of cane-growing territory, says salaries for labourers have stagnated in recent years and workers receive just 2.8 reais (75p, $1.46, 94 cents) per square metre of cane cut, earning typically less than 30 reais per day in this middle-income country. Higher production targets have transformed the labour force. Twenty years ago, there was a balance between men and women and young and old. These days, most workers are not fit to continue past the age of 35 and women have all but disappeared. Workers at Fazenda Agua Doce – the oldest at 51 is exceptional – went on strike several times last year with complaints that Mr Neves says are typical. Salaries are miserable, they say, and they are convinced they are being cheated come weighing time. “We aren’t allowed to see what we cut being weighed. Why not? Because the owners cheat us,” complains Mr Oliveira. Even so, most workers at Agua Doce lack the education to take on other work, with alternatives such as masonry and odd jobs few and far between. The losses will be particularly damaging for the economies of poorer northern states such as Maranhão and Piauí, which are heavily dependent on remittances from the internal emigrants sent to the south to work the five-month cane-field seasons. Minimising environmental damage – another key source of criticism from overseas – is also mired in controversy. Marcelo Furtado, campaign director for Greenpeace Brasil, argues that expansion of areas planted with sugarcane will push other crops into environmentally sensitive areas. The government says it is tackling these concerns through measures such as a decree prohibiting planting in areas of the Amazon and the swamplands of the Pantanal. A survey by Conab, a government agency that collects farm data, shows that about 653,000 hectares of land were turned over to sugarcane last year, of which close to 90 per cent came from former pasture, soya and maize land. There remains plenty of room for expansion: Brazil has about 7m hectares of land under sugarcane, of which about 3m hectares is used for ethanol, compared to 200m hectares of pasture, about 21m hectares of soya and 14m hectares of maize. But David Cleary, conservation programmes director for South America at The Nature Conservancy, an international environmental group, says the jury is still out on how successful the government’s efforts will be.

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Though sugarcane expansion has hitherto had little impact on Brazil’s environmentally sensitive areas, widespread failures of governance could change that position, he says: “While there is no proper monitoring in place it’s hard to argue that [expansion of biofuels] will happen with no impact on the environment.”

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Plan Hurts Amazon

Brazilian sugar ethanol industry destroys the Amazon Associated Press, 3-7-07, http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/17500316/ [Jiajia]

SAO PAULO, Brazil - Just an hour's drive outside this traffic-choked metropolis where President Bush kicks off a Latin American tour Thursday, sugar cane fields stretch for hundreds of miles, providing the ethanol that fuels eight out of every 10 new Brazilian cars.In only a few years, Brazil has turned itself into the planet's undisputed renewable energy leader, and the highlight of Bush's visit is expected to be a new ethanol "alliance" he will forge with Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva.But a top U.N. environmental official is warning that while such an alliance offers opportunities it also poses risks to Brazil's Amazon rain forest.The deal is still being negotiated, but the two leaders are expected to sign an accord Friday to develop standards to help turn ethanol into an internationally traded commodity, and to promote sugar cane-based ethanol production in Central America and the Caribbean to meet rising international demand.Across Latin America's largest nation, Brazilian media are billing the Bush-Silva meeting as a bid to create a new two-nation "OPEC of Ethanol," despite efforts by Brazilian and American officials to downplay the label amid concerns that whatever emerges would be viewed as a price-fixing cartel.On Monday, Achim Steiner, head of the U.N. Environment Program, added his voice, saying that growing international demand for ethanol threatens the Amazon if safeguards are not put in place because the world's largest remaining tropical wilderness is a target area for agriculture.Brazil's ethanol is made from sugarcane. And while sugarcane cultivation is minimal now in the Amazon, some environmentalists fear growing demand for the fuel could push cane growers there."I think at the end of the day ... it's a question of whether the Amazon is sufficiently protected and whether the expansion of the ethanol production happens in the context of government policies that try and direct that growth potential in a sustainable base," Steiner said after meeting with Brazil's ministers of environment, energy and foreign relations.Steiner praised Brazil for reducing Amazon deforestation by 11 percent last year and said he was hopeful the government would develop sufficient safeguards to protect the wilderness.

Sugar ethanol development will displace soy and cattle farming, leading to destruction of the AmazonKelly Hearn, independent journalist, former UPI staff worker in Latin America, correspondent to National Geographic News, The Christian Science Monitor, foreign political correspondent for the Washington Times, recipient of 2006 Samuel Chavkin Grant for Investigative Journalism, 2-8-07, National Geographic News, http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2007/02/070208-ethanol_2.html [Jiajia]

Sugarcane is not well suited for rain forest climates, Lacerda said, and the government is deliberately avoiding the expansion of sugarcane farms in the region.But, he said, there is concern that higher-priced crops like sugarcane will displace soy and cattle farming in the Cerrado—driving those operations into the forests, which would have to be flattened to make way for the farms. (Related photos: human encroachment in the Amazon.) "This displacement effect is not hypothetical," Lacerda added. "São Paulo used to be one of the most important cattle regions in Brazil. Now sugarcane has replaced it and pushed cattle to other places in the Cerrado and Amazon."

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Brazil EthanolDDI ‘08 KO: Jiajia

Plan Increase Problems

Plan will exacerbate social and ecological problemsIsabella Kenfield, associate of the Center for the Study of the America (CENSA) who has just returned from living in Brazil, writes on agribusiness, agrarian conflicts and social movements, published by the Americas Policy Program, 3-6-07, http://americas.irc-online.org/am/4049 [Jiajia]

If this plan is successful, the country's ethanol exports will total 20 billion liters by 2025—an increase of almost 670%. The geographic area planted with sugarcane will increase from 6 million to 30 million hectares. Is Ethanol the Solution or the Problem? Many citizen organizations in Brazil are concerned that what appears to be an economic panacea may be a social and ecological disaster. They claim that as the industry expands and more hectares are planted mono-cropping sugarcane, existing problems in rural areas of landlessness, hunger, unemployment, environmental degradation, and agrarian conflicts will be exacerbated. A recent declaration from the Forum of Resistance to Agribusinesses, a consortium of non-governmental organizations (NGOs) throughout South America states, "The implementation of the model of production and export of biofuels represents a grave threat to our region, our natural resources, and the sovereignty of our people." There is concern that while expansion of the ethanol industry may boost Brazil's GDP and some Brazilians will become very wealthy in the process, the majority of the population will not benefit from the ethanol export boom. Given U.S. plans to increase imports of Brazilian ethanol and the alliance slated to be forged during Bush's South America visit in March, it is likely the livelihoods of many Brazilians, especially the rural poor, will be subordinated to maintain U.S. consumption. "The era of biofuels will reproduce and legitimize the logic of the occupation of rural areas by multinational agribusiness, and perpetuate the colonial project to subvert ecosystems and people to the service of the production and maintenance of a lifestyle in other societies," states the Forum. The group alleges that Brazil's effort to supply the Global North with ethanol is simply a repeat of the same model of economic growth via agro-export that has been practiced since Portuguese colonization. Agricultural production for export in Brazil has traditionally been a model imposed on the country by more powerful nations in the North, alongside a small group of Brazilian landowners. Agro-export generates vast amounts of wealth for a few Brazilians, and exploitation and poverty for many others. Brazil's high rate of income inequality is inseparable from the fact that it also has one of the most unequal rates of land distribution. The sugar industry is a classic example of Brazil's land and income inequality.

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Brazil EthanolDDI ‘08 KO: Jiajia

Amplifying the ethanol industry increases conflicts, poverty, and environmental destructionIsabella Kenfield, associate of the Center for the Study of the America (CENSA) who has just returned from living in Brazil, writes on agribusiness, agrarian conflicts and social movements, published by the Americas Policy Program, 3-6-07, http://americas.irc-online.org/am/4049 [Jiajia]

As the expanding ethanol industry spreads rural poverty and loss of rural livelihoods due to increased land concentration and environmental destruction, the number and intensity of agrarian conflicts has risen. Brazil has one of the highest rates of income and land inequality in the world, and a well-articulated and organized agrarian reform movement of the rural poor. This has created a smoldering socio-economic fire that could very well be ignited with ethanol. On Feb. 19 the Movement of Landless Rural Workers (MST) and the Central Union of Workers (CUT) organized about 2,000 MST members and rural workers to non-violently occupy 12 plantations totaling 15,600 hectares in nine municipalities of São Paulo state. According to the newspaper O Estado de São Paulo, "MST leader José Rainha Júnior said the objectives of the occupations are to force the government to acknowledge the emergency need for agrarian reform, and to call attention to the social problems resulting from the expansion of sugarcane in the state." Melo reports that in 2005, Pernambuco registered 194 conflicts over land—a rate higher than the previous five years. She also reports that in the same year a general strike by sugarcane workers was violently repressed. "The employed and unemployed workers who struggle for agrarian reform are constantly threatened and coerced by the landowning companies and by the police at their service," she says. CPT data shows 60 labor conflicts for 2005 alone, while between 2000 and 2004 the highest number of labor conflicts was nine. As the Lula administration proceeds full-speed ahead with ethanol export as a model for economic development, it is turning its back on the millions of Brazilians who voted for the Workers' Party based on its promises to implement real social and economic changes, especially agrarian reform. According to Melo, "The Lula government has strengthened the historical cane-production model imposed on the country based on monoculture, and concentrated landholdings and large companies. He has not shown any interest in creating alternatives to this perverse model." Can there be viable economic alternatives to sugarcane monocropping? " Our evaluation is that the government needs to combat hunger," says Mendonça. "The government wants to become a factory to supply rich countries with cheap energy. This is compromising agrarian reform and food production."

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Brazil EthanolDDI ‘08 KO: Jiajia

Plan Increases Poverty

The Brazilian sugar ethanol industry causes increases in povertyIsabella Kenfield, associate of the Center for the Study of the America (CENSA) who has just returned from living in Brazil, writes on agribusiness, agrarian conflicts and social movements, published by the Americas Policy Program, 3-6-07, http://americas.irc-online.org/am/4049 [Jiajia]

As it grows, the sugar-ethanol industry has undergone a process of increasing concentration and vertical integration, as large corporations invest in land and production. According to a banker who finances loans to the ethanol industry in São Paulo and asked to remain anonymous, in the past control of the industry was dispersed among smaller businesses. Sugar mills were owned by individual owners who controlled both cultivation and milling. Today Brazil has 72,000 sugar producers, and the ten largest producers still control less than 30% of production. However, the banker says, "The current trend is toward concentration, with a large number of mergers and acquisitions." Many of the larger companies that are buying out the smaller companies are multinational agribusiness corporations. "The participation by foreign capital in the production of sugar and ethanol is currently 4.5%, and this number is going to grow. Recently many foreign groups are looking to invest in this industry in Brazil, due to one of the lowest costs of production in the world," says the banker. Sugarcane seems to be following the same pattern of foreign investment and concentration as that of soybeans. Today almost all soybean production in Brazil is controlled by a handful of multinational agribusinesses. Many of the corporations that control soybeans are now investing in the ethanol industry. Among the multinational agribusinesses investing in the industry are, according to the banker, Louis Dreyfus Commodities and Tereos, both based in France, as well as U.S.-based Cargill. The Louis Dreyfus site states the company is one of the three largest sugar traders in the world, and owns three Brazilian sugar mills with a fourth mill currently under construction in Mato Grosso do Sul . The company produces 450,000 tons of sugar and 150,000 cubic meters of ethanol annually. According to the Cargill website, in addition to being Brazil's largest soybean exporter and second-largest processor, Cargill is the largest operator of sugar, both in terms of Brazilian sugar production and export sales, as well as global sugar trading. As more land is planted as a monoculture of sugarcane, and control of the industry becomes more concentrated, rural poverty increases. According to Melo of the CPT, "Monoculture has created a huge dependency on the sugarcane economy in the [Pernambuco] region, and impedes the creation of other forms of work and income. The monoculture of sugarcane also leads to an increasing concentration of lands in the hands of the sugar mills. "For about 15 years, there were 43 sugar mills and alcohol distilleries in Pernambuco. Currently only 25 of these companies control practically all of the land in the 43 municipalities of the sugarcane growing region of the state ... In the last two decades, practically all of the small properties in the region have disappeared, with the forced destruction of the sites, and the expulsion of the workers to the periphery of the 43 municipalities of the sugarcane region and to the larger cities of the neighboring metropolitan region. In this same period, about 150,000 jobs were lost when 18 companies closed and the lands and sugarcane processing was concentrated in the 25 sugar mills and distilleries that remain ... This has provoked a generalized 'slumming' of the workers, which has aggravated hunger."

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Brazil EthanolDDI ‘08 KO: Jiajia

Plan Hurts Environment

Sugar ethanol leads to massive environmental destructionIsabella Kenfield, associate of the Center for the Study of the America (CENSA) who has just returned from living in Brazil, writes on agribusiness, agrarian conflicts and social movements, published by the Americas Policy Program, 3-6-07, http://americas.irc-online.org/am/4049 [Jiajia]

Industry, government, and mainstream media in Brazil generally argue that increasing ethanol exports will boost economic growth and sustainable rural development, while simultaneously helping to curb global warming by helping the world reduce its dependency on fossil fuels. But contrary to the "green" image evoked by industry advocates, the monoculture of sugarcane leads to massive environmental destruction. According to Melo, in Pernambuco only 2.5% of the original forest of the sugarcane region remains. In order to satisfy future global demand, Brazil will need to clear an additional 148 million acres of forest, says Eric Holt-Gimenez of the NGO FoodFirst, based in Oakland, CA. The damaging environmental effects of monocropping sugarcane are, in the São Paulo banker's mind, the most troubling aspect of the sugar-ethanol industry. He claims that the sugar takeover is "pushing other crops to the agricultural frontier." He explains that, "because sugarcane generates a high price per hectare, the regions with better climactic conditions are dominated by this crop, which results in sugarcane occupying lands that before were planted to grains and used for grazing livestock. Grain producers move to more remote regions, such as the center-west, which before were used for cattle. The result of this flux is that cattle ranchers seek new areas such as the Amazon region."

Brazilian sugar ethanol industry will cause ecological devastationKelly Hearn, independent journalist, former UPI staff worker in Latin America, correspondent to National Geographic News, The Christian Science Monitor, foreign political correspondent for the Washington Times, recipient of 2006 Samuel Chavkin Grant for Investigative Journalism, 2-8-07, National Geographic News, http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2007/02/070208-ethanol_2.html [Jiajia]

But an unregulated biofuels boom in Brazil could mean bust for the Amazon rain forest and a vast savanna ecosystem known as the Cerrado, environmentalists warn. Expanding large-scale agriculture to grow sugarcane, critics say, will worsen the loss of species diversity, water-quality problems, and habitat fragmentation in some of the world's most biologically diverse regions. "The primary concern is that the biofuels push will directly or indirectly increase the loss to Brazil's remaining natural high biodiversity areas, such as the Cerrado," said John Buchanan, a senior director for the U.S.-based nonprofit Conservation International. The 740,100-square-mile (1.9-million-square-kilometer) Cerrado region is South America's largest savanna—one of the richest in the world, in terms of bird, reptile, fish, and insect species. According to a study published last year in the journal Conservation Biology, more than 50 percent of the Cerrado has already been transformed into pastureland, causing soil erosion, biodiversity loss, fragmentation, and the spread of nonnative grasses. "Most of the expansion required will affect the Cerrado ecosystem and the Amazon, which are already being destroyed because of cattle ranching and soybean farming," said Leonardo Lacerda of the Brazilian chapter of the international conservation group WWF. Of Brazil's 2 million acres (850 million hectares) of land, about 1,400 acres (550 hectares) contain native forests, two-thirds of which are in the Amazon.

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Brazil EthanolDDI ‘08 KO: Jiajia

Plan hurts Food Sovereignty

Ethanol production destroys food sovereignty Isabella Kenfield, associate of the Center for the Study of the America (CENSA) who has just returned from living in Brazil, writes on agribusiness, agrarian conflicts and social movements, published by the Americas Policy Program, 3-6-07, http://americas.irc-online.org/am/4049 [Jiajia]

What the social movements, many NGOs, and other organizations agree on is that Brazil needs to incorporate the concepts of food sovereignty into its development policy, prioritizing the land to produce food for Brazilians. Food sovereignty includes both the obligation of governments to ensure that their populations have access to nutritious foods in adequate quantities, and the right of people and countries to define their own agrarian policies, and produce foods destined to feed their populations before producing for export. But food sovereignty will be unattainable without a comprehensive agrarian reform to keep family farmers on the land, producing and distributing healthy food to local populations. As it is currently developing, the Brazilian ethanol industry represents a direct challenge to food sovereignty and agrarian reform. Ethanol production to sustain the enormous consumption levels of the Global North will not lead the Brazilian countryside out of poverty or help attain food sovereignty for its citizens.

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Brazil EthanolDDI ‘08 KO: Jiajia

FTAA

U.S. should not revive the FTAA, but just increase bilateral relations with BrazilRaúl Zibechi, member of the Editorial Council of the weekly Brecha de Montevideo, a professor and investigator of social movements at the Multiversidad Franciscana de América Latina, and an adviser to various social groups, 3-7-07, http://americas.irc-online.osrg/am/4051 [Jiajia]

When Nicholas Burns visited Brazil in early February, he gave an interview to the newspaper O Estado de São Paulo that reveals Washington's plans for the region. "We are very dependent on oil. So we have to develop alternative fuels, we have to decrease our gasoline consumption. We produce corn ethanol because we have large cornfields. You (Brazil) produce ethanol from sugarcane. We are both world leaders. We control more than 70% of the world market. We believe that this is a connection with Brazil, it is an area in which we can grow together and we can lead the development of a world market with very positive consequences for the environment and for the economy. Biofuels will become the biggest and most positive point of connection between Brazil and the United States."Burns added that Brazil can play a major role in stimulating ethanol production in Central America and the Caribbean, where sugarcane plantations cover vast areas in private sector partnerships. He was very clear in pointing out that the agreement with Brazil on the development of biofuels will contribute to decreasing the dependency of U.S. imports from Venezuela and Iran. "We don't want to be dependent on those countries," Burns concluded. The same day, the newspaper interviewed Brazilian Foreign Minister Celso Amorim, who agreed with Burns: "To resuscitate the FTAA would require too great an effort. I find it much better to think in terms of bilateral associations. Ethanol, for example, does not depend at all on other countries."Obviously the two governments are thinking along the same lines, but it is important to clarify what each has to gain. Jeb Bush, who left the Florida governorship last January, now directs the Inter-American Ethanol Commission, "an organization through which Washington seeks to diversify its relations with Latin America," according to an article from the ANSA news agency dated Feb. 23.

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Brazil EthanolDDI ‘08 KO: Jiajia

Plan Expensive

Importing more sugar ethanol too expensive for U.SRaúl Zibechi, member of the Editorial Council of the weekly Brecha de Montevideo, a professor and investigator of social movements at the Multiversidad Franciscana de América Latina, and an adviser to various social groups, 3-7-07, http://americas.irc-online.osrg/am/4051 [Jiajia]

To meet these objectives, Brazil has to go from the four billion gallons of ethanol it currently exports to 35 billion gallons in 2017. It would have to build 77 ethanol plants before 2012—some experts have calculated the number needed at closer to 100—with an investment of US$2.5 billion. Much of the capital would come from the United States. "Until last year, 3.4% of the sector was denationalized. In ten years half will no longer be Brazilian," predicts Maurilio Biagi. Just last year Biagi sold one of the country's largest plants, Cevasa, to the agribusiness multinational company Cargill.

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