Ethanol And Debt Slavery

I was born one mornin' when the sun didn't shine
I picked up my shovel and I walked to the mine
I loaded sixteen tons of number nine coal
And the straw boss said "Well, a-bless my soul"

You load sixteen tons, what do you get?
Another day older and deeper in debt
Saint Peter don't you call me 'cause I can't go
I owe my soul to the company store
(Merle Travis, Sixteen Tons)

The Brazilian government has just raided a sugar cane plantation in Brazil and freed more than 1,000 people working as "debt slaves" to produce ethanol. Working 13-hour days in abominable conditions and unable to repay their debts to the company. For ethanol production.

BRASILIA, Brazil - Brazilian authorities said they raided an Amazon plantation where more than 1,000 laborers were found working 13-hour days, in horrendous conditions, cutting sugar cane for ethanol production.

Authorities said that if preliminary findings by investigators are confirmed, the raid would be Brazil's biggest to date against debt slavery, which is common in the Amazon.

Under the practice, poor laborers are lured to remote spots where they rack up debts to plantation owners charging exorbitant prices for everything from food to transportation.

But the Amazon plantation's owner — the biggest ethanol producer in the northeastern state of Para — vigorously denied the allegations Tuesday and said the workers make good money by Brazilian standards.

The raid took place in the remote town of Ulianopolis, where authorities discovered the workers a week ago, Brazil's Justice Ministry said in a statement. The company said the raid began Friday and lasted three days.

Police found 1,108 poor workers working from 4:30 a.m. until 5:30 p.m. with only a short break for lunch, the statement said. They complained of paying exorbitant prices for food and medicine, and many walked miles to get to work while others were transported in ramshackle vans.

Many were sick from spoiled food or unsafe water, slept in cramped quarters on hammocks and did not have proper sanitation facilities, Humberto Celio, coordinator of the Labor Ministry's special unit that frees debt slaves, told the government news service Agencia Brasil.

Americans fought long and hard to break these debt bondage schemes that flourished at one time in the coal mining and agricultural sectors in the US. Why is it that the push for "environmentally friendly" things seems to entail so much unfriendliness to the humans involved?