Sugar Cane Production in Brazil – Exploiting the Poor?

It is estimated that nearly 1 million people in Brazil are employed in the sugarcane industries, however, due to increasing mechanization it is estimated that the workforce will drop by between 52%-64% (Proforest, 2009). Those in the sector are paid more than those in other agricultural sectors, receiving on average 50% more than the minimum wage (Unica, 2008a) yet since it is seasonal work, jobs are often only temporary (Proforest, 2009).

The industry has come under attack from various organisations such as Friends of the Earth (2008) which has blamed the industry for displacing farmers and pushing them into the Amazon, for causing deforestation in the Brazilian Atlantic Forest and for expanding into the biodiverse savannah, Cerrado. However a regulatory body, UNICA (2009) dismisses such accusations as myths, claiming that any future expansion into the Amazon, Cerrado or other sensitive areas has been prohibited in new legislation, although this does not deny that previous expansion may have occurred or that it is happening illegally.

There have also been complaints against the industry for its poor working conditions; since many workers are paid according to the volume of cane cut that day, many exhaust themselves working long days (Proforest, 2009) with dangerous tools such as machetes (Smeets et al., 2006). Such piece rate work often uses child labour and can discriminate against women (Rossi and Lambrou, 2008). It has also been described as modern-day slavery (Friends of the Earth, 2008), however, UNICA, (2008b) refutes the claim that a workforce of up to 1 million could be enslaved, and that since Brazil has signed the International Labour Organization’s Pact for the Eradication of Slave Labour, it claims that the industry is very transparent with such matters.

The Brazilian Ministry of Labor has taken out lawsuits against sugarcane employers for poor conditions where workers are subjected to inhaling dust and smoke from the burning of sugarcane which has been linked to many health problems and many have simply died of exhaustion (Martinelli and Filoso, 2008).

UNICA (2008b), in its defence of the industry claims that its member companies have invested some R$ 160 million in 618 projects within cultural, social, education, environmental, sport and health areas, benefiting around 480 thousand people. UNICA (2008b) and the Federation of Registered Rural Workers of the State of São Paulo (FERAESP) have also made recommendations for rural labourers such as better transportation of workers to and from the field. Yet some claim these schemes are never free of bias and cases from Brazil have shown that certification systems such as the Forest Stewardship Council have committed fraud (Friends of the Earth, 2008).

References

Friends of the Earth Europe (2008) ‘Sustainability as a smokescreen: The inadequacy of certifying fuels and feeds,’ [Online] Available at: http://www.foeeurope.org/publications/2008/sustainability_smokescreen_fullreport_med_res.pdf (Accessed 2nd May 2010)

Martinelli, L.A., and Filoso, S., (2008) ‘Expansion of Sugarcane Ethanol Production in Brazil: Environmental and Social Challenges,’ Ecological Applications, 18(4), pp. 885–898

Proforest (2009) RFA annual report: Case study on Brazilian sugarcane, [Online] Renewable Fuels Agency. Available at: http://www.renewablefuelsagency.gov.uk/_db/_documents/Case_study_-_Brazilian_sugar_cane_-_ProForest_for_RFA.pdf (Accessed 6^th April 2010)

Rossi, A., and Lambrou, Y., (2008) Gender and Equity Issues in Liquid Biofuels Production: Minimizing the Risks to Maximize the Opportunities [Online] Food and Agriculture Organisation of the United Nations. Available at: ftp://ftp.fao.org/docrep/fao/010/ai503e/ai503e00.pdf (Accessed 10th April 2010)

Smeets, E., Junginger, M., Faaij, A., Walter, A. and Dolzan, P. (2006) Sustainability of Brazilian Bio-ethanol, [Online] Copernicus Institute NWS-E-2006-110. Available at: http://np-net.pbworks.com/f/Smeets+et+al+(2006)+Sustainability+of+Brazilian+bioethanol,+Copernicus+Institute+&+Unicamp.pdf (Accessed 21 April, 2010)

UNICA (2008a) Sugarcane Industry in Brazil [Online] UNICA. Available at: http://english.unica.com.br/multimedia/publicacao/ (Accessed 1^st April 2010)

UNICA 2008b) Partial list of factual errors and unsubstantiated claims contained in the report “fuelling destruction in Latin America”, distributed by the non-government organization “friends of the earth” on September 10, 2008 [Online] UNICA. Available at: http://www.unica.com.br/downloads/documents/factualerrors.pdf (Accessed 31 March 2010)

UNICA (2009) Brazilian Sugarcane Ethanol: Get the Facts Right and Kill the Myths [Online] UNICA. Available at: www.unica.com.br (Accessed 1^st April 2010)