page_title: Sustainable biofuel
section_title: Sugarcane in Brazil
hierarchical_section_title: Sustainable biofuel / Plants used as sustainable biofuel / Sugarcane in Brazil
caption_attribution_description: English: Map of Brazil showing regions where sugarcane is grown together with the main environmentally sensitive areas: Amazon forest, Pantanal wetlands, and Atlantic rainforest. This is Figure 1 from the paper indicated above.
context_page_description: Sustainable biofuel is biofuel produced in a sustainable manner.
context_section_description: Brazil’s production of ethanol fuel from sugarcane dates back to the 1970s, as a governmental response to the 1973 oil crisis. Brazil is considered the biofuel industry leader and the world's first sustainable biofuels economy.Inslee, Jay; Bracken Hendricks (2007). "6. Homegrown Energy". Apollo's Fire. Island Press, Washington, D.C. pp. 153–155, 160–161. ISBN 978-1-59726-175-3.</ref> In 2010 the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency designated Brazilian sugarcane ethanol as an advanced biofuel due to EPA's estimated 61% reduction of total life cycle greenhouse gas emissions, including direct indirect land use change emissions.
  Brazil sugarcane ethanol fuel program success and sustainability is based on the most efficient agricultural technology for sugarcane cultivation in the world, uses modern equipment and cheap sugar cane as feedstock, the residual cane-waste (bagasse) is used to process heat and power, which results in a very competitive price and also in a high energy balance (output energy/input energy), which varies from 8.3 for average conditions to 10.2 for best practice production.
  A report commissioned by the United Nations, based on a detailed review of published research up to mid-2009 as well as the input of independent experts world-wide, found that ethanol from sugar cane as produced in Brazil  "in some circumstances does better than just "zero emission". If grown and processed correctly, it has negative emission, pulling CO2 out of the atmosphere, rather than adding it. In contrast, the report found that U.S. use of maize for biofuel is less efficient, as sugarcane  can lead to emissions reductions of between 70% and well over 100% when substituted for gasoline. Several other studies have shown that sugarcane-based ethanol reduces greenhouse gases by 86 to 90% if there is no significant land use change.
  In another study commissioned by the Dutch government in 2006 to evaluate the sustainability of Brazilian bioethanol concluded that there is sufficient water to supply all foreseeable long-term water requirements for sugarcane and ethanol production. This evaluation also found that consumption of agrochemicals for sugar cane production is lower than in citric, corn, coffee and soybean cropping. The study found that development of resistant sugar cane varieties is a crucial aspect of disease and pest control and is one of the primary objectives of Brazil's cane genetic improvement programs. Disease control is one of the main reasons for the replacement of a commercial variety of sugar cane.
  Another concern is the fact that sugarcane fields are traditionally burned just before harvest to avoid harm to the workers, by removing the sharp leaves and killing snakes and other harmful animals, and also to fertilize the fields with ash. Mechanization will reduce pollution from burning fields and has higher productivity than people, and due to mechanization the number of temporary workers in the sugarcane plantations has already declined. By the 2008 harvest season, around 47% of the cane was collected with harvesting machines.
  Regarding the negative impacts of the potential direct and indirect effect of land use changes on carbon emissions, the study commissioned by the Dutch government concluded that "it is very difficult to determine the indirect effects of further land use for sugar cane production (i.e. sugar cane replacing another crop like soy or citrus crops, which in turn causes additional soy plantations replacing pastures, which in turn may cause deforestation), and also not logical to attribute all these soil carbon losses to sugar cane". The Brazilian agency Embrapa estimates that there is enough agricultural land available to increase at least 30 times the existing sugarcane plantation without endangering sensible ecosystems or taking land destined for food crops. Most future growth is expected to take place on abandoned pasture lands, as it has been the historical trend in São Paulo state. Also, productivity is expected to improve even further based on current biotechnology research, genetic improvem
caption: Location of environmentally valuable areas with respect to sugarcane plantations. São Paulo, located in the Southeast Region of Brazil, concentrates two-thirds of sugarcane cultures.[34]
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