Potenciales y Viabilidad del Uso de Bioetanol y Biodiesel para el ...

Potenciales y Viabilidad del Uso de Bioetanol y Biodiesel para el Transporte en México (SENER-BID-GTZ)
Task 6: Potentials in relation to sustainability criteria
12.4 Impacts on job creation
The transition in the Mexican agriculture, described in Chapter 6.4, makes it difficult to
estimate with precision the number of farmers involved in agricultural activities today
(Lazcano 2006a). The expected buying of land in large scale by the sugar mill owners, after
1992, did not happen; sugar cane land owners today can receive (with 5 ha) the value
equivalent to three minimum wages (against one, for 40% of all the other workers). In other
cultures the situation is different (sugar cane has specific laws).
The XII Censo General de Población y Vivienda 2000 (INEGI 2000) indicates (projections for
2005) ~25 M people living in rural areas. There are 3.77 M production units, with
approximately 10.8 M workers.
For corn, approximately 3.1 M producers are involved (from a total of 5.4 M in agriculture
and cattle rising, as mentioned in (Bioenergéticos 2006).
For sugar cane the number of 150000. cane growers is taken as a reference although more
people are involved, in each property, in the production. The estimate of 400000. direct
employees (field and industry) is presented in (Bioenergéticos 2006). Another estimate
mentioned in (Lazcano 2006a) indicates that 150000. (direct plus indirect) jobs would be
created for 60000. ha, in energy crops.
In Brazil the sugar cane agro-industry has shown a great flexibility in the number of jobs
created / unit production: in areas with large manpower available and comparatively lower
incomes (like the North-Northeast, as compared to the Center-South) the agricultural
mechanization and industrial automation are smaller, and jobs / unit production may be up to 3
times larger than in regions where manpower is more difficult to find, and wages are higher. In
all cases, the average wages in agriculture were higher in sugar cane than in all other cultures
(except for soybeans, a highly mechanized culture). The direct (formal and informal) jobs in
the agro-industry reached ~930000. in 2002 (Moraes 2005), for a sugar cane production /
processing of 318 M t cane / year. The estimated indirect jobs (late 1990’s) were nearly the
same, yielding ~5800. jobs (direct and indirect) / M t cane.
These are averages, and as said the difference in jobs / cane produced can be very large among
regions. Besides, it is difficult to foresee the structure of production in Mexico for the next
years; possibly two systems will coexist, one close to the situation today (large number of land
owners, small areas; with some degree of cooperative action) and other with much larger
areas. Suitable structures (for both systems) will lead to differences in job creation. In the
situation as today, reaching 10% ethanol in all gasoline would require to double the jobs in
sugar cane agro-industry.
Similarly, for the needs of Scenario 3 (10% ethanol in gasoline; 3.9 M m 3 ethanol) the corn
production would have to increase in 46% (plus 9.7 M t, over the production today of 21M t),
with a corresponding increase in jobs. Again, new production structures would impact in this
figure.
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