Brazilian law proposal would make mechanised sugarcane harvesting obligatory

Brazilian MP Fernando de Fabinho (Democrat for the state of Bahia) has introduced a law proposal that aims to phase out manual sugarcane harvesting within ten years and that ensures stricter evaluation and penalisation procedures for companies that still set fire to their plantations (which is needed for manual harvesting). The proposal is part of a growing number of proactive steps taken by Brazilian lawmakers to ensure that the country's vibrant sugarcane ethanol sector retains its position as the leading biofuel exporter.

The Project of Law 1712/07 states that "mechanised harvesting tackles two key problems at once: it eliminates the necessity of burning cane fields, and exempts workers of almost inhuman labor." The social and environmental balance of sugarcane ethanol would thus improve substantially.

Background
Today around 30 per cent of Brazil's sugarcane acreage is harvested mechanically, but the share is growing very rapidly. This makes sugarcane ethanol more efficient and gives it a stronger energy balance (which is already impressive, with a net energy return of 8 to 1). Mechanisation also means an end to burning cane fields, which is a practise responsible for regional air pollution and emissions. Sugarcane ethanol that relies on burned cane achieves a reduction of carbon emissions of around 80%. With burning phased out, this reduction would increase further.

Mechanisation would also make the industry far more socially sustainable. But the trend towards mechanisation is rapidly leading to the unemployment of a growing number of unskilled laborers. And this is creating a social problem of a worrying magnitude. On the one hand, these low and unskilled laborers come from very poor backgrounds and are not able to find jobs other than doing the backbreaking work of cutting sugar cane. But on the other hand, if they lose their employment on the plantations due to mechanisation, they end up in a truly problematic situation and are often forced to join the growing numbers of people living in the mega-slums of Brazil's large cities.

This trend is worrying many. Recently, Secretary of Labor Guilherme Afif, of São Paulo state, where most of the sugarcane is grown, warned that no less than 700,000 laborers might lose their jobs. São Paulo may become a social war zone because of biofuels, he said. His cabinet therefor launched a study to analyse in depth the effects of this rapid modernisation and mechanisation on the labor market. The state-wide survey is being conducted.

Afif intends to use the results of the analysis to create a program aimed at facilitating the reintegration of these workers into other markets by training them into a specific niche - ideally, they will be employed in the expanding ethanol industry. The program is seen as urgent and will be implemented in the 645 municipalities of the State.

Possible solutions
This is the ideal held by most policy makers: training the unemployed former manual laborers into becoming relatively skilled workers who can be employed at the new ethanol factories that are springing up, as truckers and as operators of the new planting and harvesting machines. Some are optimistic about a scenario that states that if the ethanol industry expands rapidly enough, it can take in these large numbers of laborers, now skilled.

Policy workers of the Lula government and sociologists have suggested other possible solutions. One deals with making the establishment of a percentage of new sugarcane plantations slightly more challenging, for example by locating them on modestly difficult terrain that would normally not be chosen for a plantation, but that has the suitable agro-ecological conditions nonetheless, such as mild slopes. Establishing plantations there would require more skilled labor. The idea foresees a set of incentives to compensate companies operating in these zones:
energy :: sustainability :: biomass :: bioenergy :: biofuels :: ethanol :: sugarcane :: harvesting :: labor :: mechanisation :: social sustainability ::

Law proposal
Fernando de Fabinho's legislative intervention goes in the same direction. His proposal states that the federal government will have to stimulate the change in the production methods through a set of mechanisms, and must create instruments to provide courses and training for to transform the laborers into skilled workers.

The Executive will have to edit a plan of action containing the set of the measures to be implemented, with the corresponding forecast of fiscal and credit resources, as well as a time table of implementation for each one of the measures.

Speeding up the transition to mechanisation will require extra investments and incentives to companies, which is why the law proposal suggests to integrate pluri-annual plans with expenditures into over-arching budgetary laws as well as in the annual budgetary laws, so that a strong financial framework emerges.

de Fabinho proposes to tie new licences for companies that want to expand sugarcane growing operations or for new concessions for companies entering the sector, to them phasing out the practise of sugarcane burning.

The proposal has meanwhile moved to the plenary of the House of Representatives and will now be submitted to a special commission dedicated to analysing and refining the proposal.

Thanks to EthanolBrasil.

References:
eCâmara: Proposição: PL-1712/2007 (8/8/2007), Proposição Sujeita à Apreciação Conclusiva pelas Comissões - Art. 24 II: Dispõe sobre a mecanização da colheita da cana-de-açúcar e toma outras providências, Fernando de Fabinho - DEM /BA.

Agência Câmara: Colheita mecanizada de cana pode ser obrigatória - January 17, 2007.

Ethical Sugar, a Paris-based NGO involved in making the world's sugarcane industry more socially just by creating a social dialogue between different interest groups.

Biopact: Brazilian biofuels update [Mechanisation and employment] - May 28, 2007