Ministry of Agriculture, Livestock and Food Supply - Embrapa

100 species, ten of which show good potential for domestication and future
exploitation.
Lastly, one-fourth of the world's fresh surface and underground water is
located in Brazil, which facilitates large-scale irrigated farming.
As for competitive advantages, Brazil leads the field of modern tropical
agriculture technology generation and implementation. The country has
accumulated a valuable stock of knowledge and vast experience in science and
technology research, development, innovation, and management. Furthermore,
we have an installed material, human and institutional capability foretelling that
Brazil will continue on the leading edge of energy agriculture technology, as we
already are in food agriculture.
The country has vast technical and business experience in the development
of a vigorous agro-industry, whose most striking example is the ethanol production
chain, known as the most efficient in the world in terms of process and
management technology.
At the same time, the domestic agroenergy market is sufficiently large to
permit production scale gains and technology absorption returns and, thus, ensure
the country's competitiveness in international markets.
Brazil should become the main destination of resources from the carbon
market, whose creation can already be envisaged and should rapidly occur once
the Kyoto Protocol is fully effective.
The synergy of the natural comparative advantages (soil, water, manpower,
and abundant, intense solar radiation) and the accumulated competitive advantages
should bring Brazil to the privileged position of chief destination of domestic and
foreign investment in the production and use of agroenergy and the implementation
of appropriate facilities and logistics for the storage and transportation of the
production (communications, liquid storage, railroads and water way transportation,
and port facilities).
The environmental factor
The accumulation of carbon dioxide – main agent of the abnormal
warming of the earth crust – has markedly increased in recent years and
leads scientists to fear that the effects of global warming could become evident
faster than previously expected. Carbon dioxide concentrations increased
more than 2 ppm in the 2001/2002 and 2002/2003 biennia, while the rate of
increase had been 1.5 ppm in previous years, the latter rate already being
considered much too high.
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