The last century was the scene of an extraordinary social and economic development of mankind. This development had the fossil energy as one of its pillars. The discovery of petrol led the society to shape a development model highly dependent on this source of energy, which has finite resources and also promotes a big increase on the greenhouse gases, with unforeseeable consequences for the human beings as well as the entire life. It is imperative that we change the pillars of energy from fossil to renewables that will be more sustainable and less aggressive to the environment. One of the sources of this new energy platform, probably the best, is biomass. Fibrous plants bring several advantages and fit well within the requirements deemed important to be elected as producers of biomass. Among these characteristics we have the high processing capacity of solar energy into biomass, fast growth, long-term canopy, possibility of large-scale production. Despite of that this plants are adapted to suboptimal environments that allows its production not compete with food production because it requires less energy input, bringing marginal lands into production with its all social-benefit consequences. Among the fibrous plants, SUGAR CANE or, better, ENERGY CANE has one of the biggest potential for biomass productions. Results from several breeding programs has showing the high biomass potential of energy cane over other biomass crops like sorghum, elephant grass and eucalyptus.

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Brazil is the world’s largest producer of sugarcane and one of the leading suppliers of sugar and ethanol worldwide. In the 2019–2020 crop season, the country produced 642.7 million tons of sugarcane in a harvest area of 8.44 million hectares. Historically, sugarcane breeding has contributed continuously to increasing yields by regularly releasing superior cultivars for use by the Brazilian industry. In the last 40 years, an average annual increase of 155.7 kg ha−1 of sugar yield has been reported, about half of which may be attributed to breeding programs. However, due to the size of the country, the intensive expansion of the crop to low-fertility soils in the last few years, especially in degraded pasture areas, and the widespread adoption of mechanization, new challenges have been imposed on national breeding programs. This review covers the current situation with sugarcane breeding in Brazil and the main advances that have allowed the country to maintain world leadership in developing the industry. Additionally, the history of sugarcane breeding, current national breeding institutions, germplasm development, key breeding objectives, selection stages and methodologies are summarized. An overview is also presented of biotechnological approaches which have become key tools for improving Brazilian traditional breeding programs. The adoption of strategies to increase Brazilian sugarcane yield, aiming to consolidate crop production in a food and energy matrix, is also discussed.

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