The Biofuel Slaves
Brazil is spoken of in glowing terms by the alternative fuels true believers. Brazil, they say, has achieved a "stunning success" with its aggressive ethanol program. Democratic Senators in the United States have demanded more ethanol production in the US. Maybe it would be useful to look at Brazil a bit more closely.
BATATAIS, BRAZIL — As dawn cracks over seemingly endless fields of sugar cane, a ragged army of men and women sharpen their machetes to harvest the raw material for Brazil's "white gold."
The cane cutters gather five 8-foot stalks in the crook of one arm, bend over and cut them down with three swift machete whacks, a process they will repeat over and over again for as long as 12 hours a day.
"By the end of the day your entire body hurts so much you think you are going to die," cane cutter Raimundo Gomes da Silva said. "But it is all we know how to do, so we will continue doing the same thing, day after day, until we drop dead."
The pioneering use of sugar cane-based ethanol, which fuels about 30 percent of the nation's autos, has made Brazil a global leader in alternative energy.
Getting less attention is the squalid labor conditions of nearly half a million people who toil in the fields six days a week to supply the cane to the nation and a growing export market.
Some producers are getting quite rich. The workers, however, are living in appalling conditions. There are supposedly plans in the works to substitute machines for the human labor - which will have the downside of throwing all those people out of even that miserable existence. Some producers have been keeping workers in "debt slavery". But the government unti that tried to stop that sort of thing has been shut down.
The ministry has an elite unit dedicated to freeing workers from debt slavery.
But the unit shut down recently protesting "political interference" after lawmakers challenged its raid on Para Pastoril e Agricola, a leading ethanol producer. The raid in the northern state of Para it found more than 1,000 cutters working 13-hour days in what the unit said were slavelike conditions. The company has denied abusing workers. It was slapped with a $1.1 million fine and its directors charged with "submitting workers to conditions analogous to slavery."
The unit's shutdown leaves Brazil without an effective enforcement tool for cane-field conditions, the ministry said.
Yep. That's some stunning success. Add to that the destruction of the rainforest to clear more land for cane production and the practice of burning off the cane fields just before harvest to clear the undergrowth and kill some of the snakes and scorpions and the environmental benefits are not readily apparent.
Energy, Environment | Gaius Tuesday, 2 October , 2007
By elizabeth, Tuesday, 2 October , 2007 @ 11:17 am
This is a complex subject and I am not sure most people understand all the issues well enough to really know how to “take” bio fuels. (including me) I would suggest that the experience of Brazil, the exploitation of workers and the tragic loss of Rain forest is not necessarily transferable to the situation in the US. Here the crops to make bio fuel are grown on existing farmland by existing farmers looking to grow marketable grain to make a living for their families. I live in the grain belt.
There are reportedly still great inefficiencies in the production of ethanol which is probably true, but much of the criticism can be traced to the powerful oil lobby which is served by demonizing biofuel. So, negative statements about bio fuel must always be carefully filtered through this lens. Should there be a worldwide impacting ecological or political disaster in the Mideast that resulted in the loss of oil distribution, I think having some form of alternate home grown and available fuel to temporarily maintain our economy, and perhaps protect ourselves as a nation makes sense. Gramma always used to say “don’t put all your eggs in one basket.”
By Gaius, Tuesday, 2 October , 2007 @ 11:42 am
My Grandma used to have a saying about suckers. Elizabeth, a lot of what has happened in Brazil may not be directly applicable to the US. True. The “powerful oil lobby” bugaboo, though is rather silly. What about the immensely powerful agri-lobby? What about all the environmentalists - worldwide - who are warning that biofuel is very bad for the planet?
Search biofuel and ethanol on this blog sometime. I’ve collected a lot of links to such stories.
Look at yesterday’s post about the mounting shortages of food aid - partly due to diversion of food into fuel.
By elizabeth, Tuesday, 2 October , 2007 @ 12:20 pm
Sorry, Gaius, I wasn’t looking to start a fight or to be insulting, OR to be insulted–was just giving an opinion. I won’t do that anymore. But I truly find it worrisome that no one ever seems to address what will happen when the Mideast oil stops flowing so freely.
By Gaius, Tuesday, 2 October , 2007 @ 12:23 pm
It was not actually directed at you - it was directed at the people who flat out are pushing this without a clue as to the implications. And there are a lot of them.
By feeblemind, Tuesday, 2 October , 2007 @ 1:47 pm
Elizabeth. Don’t be intimidated and don’t take a counterpoint personally. Shoot, nobody even knows who you are. Gaius isn’t the only one who reads comments.