Sugarcane ethanol: Contributions to climate change - BAFF

Land use dynamics and sugarcane production
replaced by one mechanical harvester (Conab, 2008a). In 2007, about three quarters of the
Brazilian sugarcane area was still manually harvested and some 300,000 workers depend
for their livelihood on manual cutting of cane. �e pace of introduction of mechanized
harvesting will therefore be a�ected by the cost/bene�t of substituting manual labor and
on suitable socio-economic conditions to reallocate the current contingent of sugarcanecutting
workers.
Adequate know-how and well developed technology is available to achieve sustainable
sugarcane production and expansion (Goldemberg et al., 2008). However, the adoption of
new technologies requires a favorable economic and political environment that facilitates
investments in clean technologies. While Brazil has accumulated considerable experience
on sustainable sugarcane production through its PROALCOOL program, it will be critical
to share and transfer this knowledge and ensure application of new technologies and
of ‘best practices’ in other regions of the Americas, Asia and especially Africa, where
large expansion potentials may materialize quickly due to the current urgency to develop
bioenergy resources.
References
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