Brazil Between Bioeconomy Barons and Grassroots Agroecology

Abstract

Despite grand bioeconomy ambitions in this megadiverse country, sugarcane and soy dominate Brazil's agenda so far. National policies have driven particularly biofuel expansion, consumed essentially in the domestic market. Those policies have included regulatory and economic instruments such as blending mandates, fiscal incentives, and public credit to key agroindustries, in addition to public investments in biofuel R&D, production, and storage infrastructure. This agenda has economically benefited agribusiness, helped substitute fossil fuels, and supported Brazil's energy independence. However, by relying only on a few industrial monocultures, this expansion has also furthered socio-environmental impacts, such as on agrobiodiversity and freshwater resources. Sugarcane-ethanol production has helped increase large agribusiness' control over natural resources at the expense of smallholders and indigenous peoples. Biodiesel chains, in turn, have attempted but broadly failed to include smallholders, relying in the end mainly on soy. The prevalence of these production patterns reflects the dominance of an agribusiness coalition in governance. Some critics advocate for structural change towards agroecology, but private agroindustries and like-minded state actors have prevailed thanks to their more considerable material capabilities, better access to positions of legal authority, and a successful discourse that promotes large Brazilian agribusiness as working for the national interest.Brazil has long been a hub of biofuel and now bioeconomy promotion. With a large ethanol sector since the 1970s, an expanding biodiesel industry, and coordinated efforts to export its production model abroad (most notably in Africa), the South American country is a key player as well as a significant case study for how biofuels and the bioeconomy may develop. Brazil is the only nation where biofuels account for more than 10% of the energy used in the transport sector (REN21 2019). From economic and ecological standpoints, its sugarcane-ethanol is considered the most efficient biofuel commercially produced from standard crops (Pereira et al. 2019). The country also pioneered policies to include the rural poor in biodiesel production chains, and many have regarded it as an example that other developing countries in the