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 8: Synthesis and recommendationsAs previously mentioned, the production and use of bioethanol (and co-generated electricity)can result in positive environmental impacts. It can save fossil fuels, and the correspondingGHG emissions. Ethanol use in blends with gasoline (and incorporated into ETBE) reducesemissions of controlled substances such as carbon monoxide and unburned hydrocarbons. Onthe other hand, the possibility of and consequences from leakage and contamination ofgroundwater, especially of ETBE, must be considered.The job impact of fuel ethanol in Mexico for a nationwide 10% ethanol blend would be todouble the number of jobs in the sugar cane agro-industry in areas not now under sugar canecultivation adding approximately 400 thousand jobs. Alternatively, if ethanol would beentirely produced from maize, a 10 % ethanol blend would result in an increase of 45% in thejobs in the maize economy. New production technologies encompassing larger areas,mechanization and automation, would lead to lower job creation. Nevertheless, expanding thejob market at relatively low investment could be one of the most important socialcontributions of an ethanol program in Mexico (Macedo, 2006).The ongoing transition in the Mexican agriculture makes it difficult to estimate with precisionthe number of farmers engaged in agriculture today (Lazcano, 2006a). The expected buying ofland in large scale by the sugar mill owners, after the 1992 reform, did not happen. Sugar caneland 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, as inMexico, sugar cane has a specific social compact based on laws and regulations.Projections based on the XII Censo General de Población y Vivienda 2000, suggests for 2005that some 25 million people live in rural areas. There are 3.77 million production units, withapproximately 10.8 million workers. For maize, approximately 3.1 million producers areinvolved, out of a total of 5.4 million in agriculture and cattle husbandry (Macedo, 2006). It isestimated that about 150 thousand people are sugar cane growers in Mexico. However morepeople are engaged in production, making up a total of 400 thousand direct jobs in agricultureand industrial conversion to sugar.As a reference, in Brazil the sugar cane industry has shown a great flexibility in the number ofjobs created/unit production. In areas with large manpower available and comparatively lowerincomes (Northeast Brazil) agricultural mechanization and industrial automation are limited,and jobs/unit production may be up to 3 times larger than in regions where manpower is moredifficult to find, and wages are higher (Southeast Brazil). In both cases, however, the averagewages were higher in sugar cane agriculture than in all other cultures, except for soybeans, ahighly mechanized culture. The direct -formal and informal - jobs in the sugar cane agroindustryreached circa 930,000 in 2002, for 318 million t sugar cane production/processing.The estimated indirect jobs in the late 1990’s were nearly the same, yielding a total of 5,800jobs (direct and indirect) per million t of sugar cane (Macedo, 2006). These are averages.Differences in jobs/sugar cane produced can be very large among regions in the same country.It is difficult to foresee the structure of ethanol production in Mexico in the future. Possiblytwo systems will coexist. One would be similar to today’s situation, that is, large number ofland owners, small areas, some based on cooperatives. The other system would be based onmuch larger holdings. Suitable structures (for both systems) will lead to differences in jobcreation. If priority is given to large scale sugar cane expansion in pasture and marginal lands,9