 For the 2008 / 09 harvest it is expected that about 44 % of the sugarcane will be used for sugar, 1 % for alcoholic beverages, and 55 % for ethanol production. An estimate of between 24.9 billion litres (6.58 billion U.S. liquid gallons) to 27.1 billion litres (7.16 billion gallons) of ethanol are expected to be produced in 2008 / 09 harvest year, with most of the production being destined for the internal market, and only 4.2 billion liters (1.1 billion gallons) for exports, with an estimated 2.5 billion liters (660 million gallons) destined for the US market. Sugarcane cultivated area grew from 7 million to 7.8 million hectares of land from 2007 to 2008, mainly using abandoned pasture lands. In 2008 Brazil has 276 million hectares of arable land, 72 % use for pasture, 16.9 % for grain crops, and 2.8 % for sugarcane, meaning that ethanol is just requiring approximately 1.5 % of all arable land available in the country.
