Food
security, poor farmers, and environmental impact are not often
discussed when talking about bio-fuels.
By Daniel
Cassol
The discussion
around clean, renewable energy production is not new, but now
it has become more urgent, especially after the beginning of February
when the Intergovernmental Panel of Climatic Changes released
its report about global warming. Faced with such a distressing
alarm, the world seems like it is facing the fact that it must
changes its sources of energy, adopting alternative ways to produce
the energy it consumes.
At a meeting
in France, a group of scientists announced that the Earth's temperature
could increase by four degrees in this century due to the increased
concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere related to the
use of fossil fuel. Currently, 80% of the world's energy source
comes from fossil carbons, of which 36% comes from petroleum,
23% from coal, and 21% from natural gas.
In these times,
one product is gaining more and more attention: bio-fuels. Energy
production for use in transportation based on sugar cane or oily
seeds, like soy, seems to be literally the salvation of agriculture.
And Brazil is the likely hero, with 200 million hectares of fertile
land, according to the National Plan of Agro-ergia, released by
the federal government in 2006.
The principle
argument used for betting on bio-fuels is that they are a renewable
source of energy; that is, they don't drain the planet like petroleum
does, for example. But in this case, are bio-fuels in fact an
answer to the environmental collapse of the planet and an alternative
for poor farmers, or are they part of the survival of agribusiness,
and one that will generate environment impacts just as serious
as fossil fuels? It is a debate for which there is little space,
and few voices.
"Businesses
and governments are waging an intense campaign to present bio-fuels
as the alternative to combat climatic changes by substituting
a part of petroleum consumption. But the real thought is not to
abandon petroleum, nor change the standards of the consumption
that produces global warming. Rather it is to bring together these
forms of energy to create new sources of business, promoting and
subsidizing the industrial production of plants to this end,"
writes Silvia Ribeiro, researcher for ETC**, in an article for
the Mexican newspaper, La Jornada. She further writes that all
of the businesses that produce genetically-modified seeds, companies
like Syngenta, Monsanto, Dupont, Dow, Bayer and Basf, have investments
in the production of bio-fuels, like ethanol and bio-diesel.
Capitalist Logic.
The signs that
world capitalism has a strategic plan to conquer the market for
agro-energy is becoming more clear. On January 31, 2007, in his
State of the Union address to the Congress of the United States,
President George Bush announced his goal of reducing the consumption
of gasoline by 20% by the year 2017, and producing 132.4 billion
liters of alternative fuels, principally ethanol made from corn.
The subject of bio-fuels was also one of the principle topics
discussed at the World Economic Forum in January, in Davos, Switzerland.
The movement
of wealthy countries and big multinationals around this subject
has made analysts and social movements view with reluctance the
entrance of developing nations in the production of bio-fuels.
The environmental impact created by monoculture, the exploitation
of poor farmers and rural workers, and the threat to food production
are on the list of concerns. In Brazil, agribusiness is betting
on sugar cane, and soy, transgenic of course.
"There are
no government programs with criteria or established directives
in the area of production that point to a new agricultural model.
Besides this, the bio-diesel program is being handed over to a
group of private companies who want to buy the farmers' grains
without adequately compensating rural communities. They are encouraging
monoculture once again," criticized Brother Seraglio Borden,
a leader of Via Campesina of Brazil, a group which brings together
social movements from all over the world, like the MST and the
Movement of Small Farmers.
In accord with
the federal government's National Program for Production and Use
of Bio-diesel, Brazil--beginning in 2008--will make obligatory
a 2% addition of vegetable oil-based diesel in petroleum-based
diesel. This percentage will increase to 5% in 2013. If the bio-diesel
market with 2% is one billion liters per year, with 5% this demand
will grow to 2.7 billions of liters per year. The stars of the
Brazil government are soy, seen as a lifesaver for big producers
of transgenic seeds, and the castor-oil plant, which theoretically
would benefit family farming.
Concerning ethanol,
Brazil will once again prioritize sugar cane production. It is
estimated that production will increase 50% in relation to the
current production of 460 tons, according to the Union of Sugar
Cane Agro-industry of São Paulo.
A new Pro-Alcohol?
In sum, faced
with the real opportunity to change the model of agricultural
production, Brazil is entering into the production of bio-fuels
by reinforcing unsustainable practices in environmental and social
terms. The rush into bio-fuels is benefiting big companies and
tossing small farmers aside, not to mention harming the cultivation
of foods for local consumption.
“There
is a risk of repeating the experience of Pro-Alcohol in Brazil.
You have a clean fuel, produced in a dirty way, besides being
environmentally unsustainable in the process of production and
socially perverse in the way that it treats its workers,? says
Frei Sergio. Created in the 1970s, the National Alcohol Program
gave incentives to small and medium sized farmers, to install
their own alcohol distillers. For political reasons, such as that
it remained illegal to use your own home-made alcohol as a fuel,
the Pro-Alcohol program ended up benefiting only big producers,
whose labor practices including using slave labor in their cane
processing and their considerable environmental impacts.
Close to 30 years
later, the same risks are in place. The sugar industry is excited
about the possibility of opening the market for Brazillian ethanol
in the United States. For his part, president Luíz Ignacio
Lula da Silva announces that “we’ll eat good soy,
and we’ll make bio-diesel from transgenic soy,? signaling
the priority that is being given to the big farmers and multinational
grain companies. The creation of H-Bio, a mix of vegetable oil
and petroleum developed by Petrobras, is another way to favor
world agribusiness and the oil industry.
The federal government
thinks, however, that the creation of the Social Fuel Seal will
be a sort of safeguard for the family farm. The program proposes
incentives to industries that obtain oil-seeds produced by small
farmers. “We see farmers interested in going back to growing
cotton, sunflower, peanuts, sesame, and other oil-seeds. That
way, the farmers will not fall in the monoculture trap. If the
government had launched a biodiesel program without this incentive
for family farms, surely it would be made up only of soy, which
is the biggest Brazillian oil-seed,? remarked the executive director
of energy development at Petrobras, Mozart Schmitt de Queiróz.
Even still, projects along the lines of Social Fuel present problems,
most of all for betting on the monoculture of the castor oil seed
in the South and Northeast of the country. Another problem is
the direct buying of grains from the farmers, placing them in
the chain of production together with the big companies. The milk
and tobacco industries have similar chains of production and frequently
report cases of the economic exploitation of small farmers.
Diversifying
production
The organizations
of family farmers are approaching the emergence of bio-fuels with
a high level of distrust, but they are also certain that this
is where the strategic debate between two opposing models of production
will stop. For organizations like La Via Campesina, certain basic
requirements exist before the farmers will enter into the production
of bio-fuels so that they can avoid falling into a trap. They
want to prioritize food production, mix energy crops with other
crops, and avoid systems of where they are integrated with big
companies, instead of participating in as many stages of the production
of bio-fuels as possible.
“The small
properties owned by family farmers do not have any way of making
themselves viable in the midst of the monoculture model. The big
advantage of small farms is their system of diversified production,
which belongs to their Agro-ecology model. It is important to
be able to produce both bio-fuels and food. It is also fundamental
to take advantage of the waste product left over after the extraction
of oils. With these wastes, small farms could increase their production
of eggs, milk, and meat, making the small farm systems of production
even more viable,? explains the agronomist Alexandre Borscheild,
who works with Cooperbio, a biodiesel cooperative formed by farmers
linked to La Via Campesina in the state of Rio Grande do Sul.
This is the direction
that some projects created by branches of the Via Campesina in
Brazil are going. Biodiesel will be made with multiple seeds,
such as sunflower, peanut, and canola, whose residues will be
used as animal feed or as organic fertilizer. Cooperatives of
small farmers will be able to build their own seed-crushing facilities,
sell the oil to companies, and keep the useful oil-seed waste
products. “The conclusion that we are reaching is that the
staple for the peasant farmer has to be oil-seeds that are perennial.
In a small area, he will produce a large amount,? explains Frei
Sergião, citing the use of trees such as pinhão
manso and the tungue, in the south, and dendê (palm oil),
in the north. In the production of alcohol fuel, sugar cane can
be accompanied by manioc and sweet potato. Just as with the making
of biodiesel, the intention is to grow fuel crops mixed with food
crops, and add value to the product before selling to the industries.
Transnationals
vs small farmers
“The small
farming system of production is more suitable because small farmers
succeed in ensuring a very good combination between food and energy
production, besides guaranteeing systems of polyculture, with
products that can sustain the small farming production units.
Large monoculture is not going to be efficient with sunflowers,
castor-oil, peanuts, Barbados nuts, nor will they succeed in being
efficient with the plants that have a large percentage of oil.
Those plants adapt better to the small farming system. And small
farming provides better conditions for resolving the equation
between the production of energy and the production of food, Brother
Sergio analyzes. In La Via Campesina leader’s opinion, Petrobras
is one of the few channels within the federal government that
opens the way for using the small farming method of agriculture
in the production of biodiesel.
Mozart Queiroz
pf Petrobras explains that the company acquires oil from the farmers
and not seeds. “This motivates the cooperatives to set up
their own extracting equipment. So family farming can keep a product
and gain more value for their organization, managing a product
that can be transformed into milk, eggs, meat. We are working
to share the benefit of industrialization, for the farmer to be
part of the chain of production at the extraction phase. At the
same time, we are encouraging the growing of several oil-producing
plants, trying to avoid monoculture,? he says.
For the agronomist
Alexandre Borscheid, the dispute between the market and the production
model of bio-fuels has already begun and it looks like the field
is wide open for the advance of the multinational agribusiness
corporations. “If there is no intervention by the State
to prioritize policies for family farming, the tendency is for
the multinationals to take over this market, which promises to
be very profitable. They are going to move into farm areas and
this places family farming at risk. The farmers have to have autonomous
production, with their own projects, in which they can ensure
the production of liquid energy while preserving the production
of food?, he states.
The executive
manager of Petrobras recognizes the risks of the race unleashed
by the production of bio-fuels -- in the environmental impacts
created by monoculture, in the damage to food sovereignty, and
in the increase in economic exploitation of small farmers. According
to him, before discussing these questions, humanity needs to rethink
its model of energy consumption. “Even if the entire surface
of the earth were used to produce bio-fuels, we would not succeed
in keeping the consumption at the today’s level of fossil
fuel consumption. It’s clear that it is urgent to rethink
the world energy matrix?, he concludes.
Bio-(agro)fuels
At the Forum
on Food Sovereignty, which took place at the end of February in
Mali, Africa, La Via Campesina International decided that the
term “agro-fuels? should be substituted for the term “bio-fuels?.
This is because the organization believes that the incentive for
this type of fuel has led to the policies of monoculture (and
not of small diversified production), threatening small farmers
and food sovereignty. Since “bio? means “life? –
the opposite of what is being practiced today, the group adopted
the term “agro-fuel?. La Via Campesina International, of
which the MST is a part, brings together rural social movements
from all over the world.
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*Fossil fues:
There are three
big types of fossil fuels: coal, oil, and natural gas. They were
formed millions of years ago and result from a process of decomposition
of plants and animals.
**Grupo ETC
International group that works with social movements, furnishing
analyses and information about technologies of sustainable development.
***Cooperbio
The cooperative
involves around 25 thousand families in 62 municipalities of the
Northwest region of the state, producing 400 thousand liters of
biofuels per day.
