Dow Jones Newswires'Kenneth Rapoza reports from Brazil

Tag : Brazilian Sugar

Dow Jones Newswires’ Kenneth Rapoza reports from Brazil:
Amid mounting criticism that Brazil’s ethanol industry isfelling forests to grow sugar for fuel, the industry is fightingback to save its reputation.
Last week, Unica , Brazil’s ethanol lobby, organized a trip intended toimprove its image with reporters, mostly Europeans but including yours truly too.
Brazil wants Europe to become a major importer of Brazilianethanol. But Stavros Dimas, the European Union’s environmentcommissioner, wants guarantees from Brazil that the ethanol it sells to the EU isn’thurting the Amazon or Brazilian workers.
Unica’s counterattacks began in January, after Bloomberg TV ran “Deadly Brew - The Human Toll of Ethanol,” whichshowcased the miserable conditions many cane cutters work under.Unica president Marcos Jank said the report was based on“isolated cases.”
The Amazon is the hotter issue. Having ratified the Kyoto Protocoland taken up biofuels, Europeans don’t want to see theworld’s largest rainforest disappear because of energy crops.
Just a few days before European reporters arrived, governmentsatellite imagery showed that 1,123 square kilometers (the size ofRio de Janeiro city) were carved out of the Amazon in April alone.Private sugarcane milling companies were fined $4.8 million forburning sugarcane leaves at the wrong time of day, polluting theair. And on Thursday, auditors for Brazil’s labor ministrayfound 52 migrant workers living without beds or bathrooms in SaoPaulo.
Unica flew with reporters to the privately held Santelisa Vale sugarcane company. Santelisa Vale intends to modernize itsproduction, which means mechanizing production. Asked by hisvisitors what will happen to all those cane cutters, Santelisa CEOAnselmo Rodrigues explained that while some will be trained todrive harvest combines, most will be laid off.
That will help the company in two ways. Cutting cane by handrequires burning it, and burning it pollutes, so mechanization willhelp the environment, Mr. Rodrigues said. And getting rid of mostof the cane-cutters will get rid of most of the company’slabor-rights critics. That will leave just one main PR battle forUnica: convincing Europe it’s not destroying the rainforestto make green fuel.