Bolsonaro Opens Amazon To Sugarcane Cultivation; Sugar Industry Didn't Even Want This
A decree issued by President Jair Bolsonaro that would allow the cultivation of sugarcane in the Amazon — where it currently isn’t allowed — has surprised even the local sugarcane industry, which has previously rejected the notion as unfeasible, unnecessary, and a minefield of reputational risk.
The decree was published in the government’s official gazette on Nov. 5. Since then, no representatives from UNICA, the Brazilian Sugarcane Industry Association, have commented on the change. In its only statement on the matter, published on its website, UNICA described the zoning regulation repealed by Bolsonaro’s decree as an “instrument of the past.” But it also emphasized that under the RenovaBio bioethanol initiative, Brazil’s national biofuels policy that comes into force in 2020, that the industry had “decided that it would be [committed to a] zero … deforestation policy.”
The industries most closely associated with deforestation in the Amazon are cattle ranching and soy cultivation. The sugarcane industry, which has made Brazil the world’s No. 2 producer of bioethanol fuel after the United States, has avoided that association for several reasons. The first is that the crop is simply unsuited for that particular environment; heat or drought stress causes the plant to stop growing.
The industry has also seen no justification for expanding into protected areas when available land is plentiful elsewhere. The newly repealed Sugarcane Agroecological Zoning regulation provided for the possibility of planting sugarcane on approximately 60 million hectares (150 million acres) outside forest areas, in degraded or pasture areas, without having to expand into the Amazon, Pantanal or other biomes with primary forest. Even restricted, the permissible land bank is six times greater than the total planted sugarcane area in Brazil at present. There’s also the reputational risk of being associated with deforestation in the Amazon. That was the main message from the National Sugar-Alcohol Forum, of which UNICA is a member, when it met in March last year. The forum advocated the rejection of a bill in the National Senate that would authorize the inclusion of the Amazon in sugarcane zoning plans.
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https://news.mongabay.com/2019/11/in-a-surprise-move-even-to-the-sugarcane-industry-president-bolsonaro-has-removed-restrictions-on-sugarcane-production-in-the-brazilian-amazon-experts-expect-land-speculators-to-benefit/