Economics at The Edge of a Blade

By Mike Danna
Louisiana Farm Bureau Federation Public Relations Director

When U.S. farmers travel abroad there’s always one or two little factoids that momentarily take them aback.

Monday we heard a presentation on Brazilian ethanol production from professors at the University of Sao Paulo’s College of Agriculture and private industry sector execs. One of those presentations was by officials from Cosan, a sugar and ethanol cooperative that has vertically integrated the manufacturing process to include growing, harvesting and processing of sugarcane-based ethanol.

Here are the two factoids that left many of us speechless, albeit momentarily. First, Cosan has 600,000 hectares, or 1.5 million acres of sugarcane in production. Secondly, 900,000 acres of that 1.5 million is cut by hand. That’s right. Workers, all 32,000 of them, harvest the cane with cane knives. We only thought we were at a disadvantage. 

I can’t image what that scene must look like from the air; thousands of workers toiling in 99-degree temperatures, swinging a blade, felling the cane and piling it up; row after row, acre after acre. I’m not sure Louisiana farmers could ever image such a workforce, much less how to manage such an endeavor. A single chopper harvester back home does a pretty good job on sugar farms between 650 and 1,000 acres. I guess with 1.5 million acres in production Cosan would have to corner the market on Cameco choppers to bring in their crop.

While many of us think of ethanol in Brazil as a fairly modern development, ethanol here has been in production since 1920. In fact, the very first car “to achieve forward motion,” as one of our presenters said, was powered by ethanol. It was Model T Ford powered by pure alcohol in 1922. 

Tomorrow will be our last night in a hotel before heading home. This will be my second to last post before we board the plane midnight Wednesday heading home. Check out a few photos from today. Thanks for keeping up.

Until next time…