5.2 Allocation and Access: Analyzing Institutional Performance
107
These biofuel production strategies thus reveal a profound imbalance in the allocation of power, roles, benefits, and burdens in the emerging bioeconomy. While control
and value-added are retained mainly by private agribusiness—and previously also
Petrobras, a company of mixed capital—the rural poor have been allocated at most
with only the least valuable roles, with hardly any control, and minimal gains. In fact,
their situation of need has often been exploited, as in the case of cheap degrading
labor in sugarcane cutting. This shortage of societal benefit is even though most
investments over the years in agriculture and much of the sector’s financing have
been public.
18 It is, however, the larger agroindustry that gets, in addition to those
investments and credit, a whole new market of sizeable elastic demand, plus higher
profits from increased sugar, corn, or vegetable oil prices.
5.2.2 Access to Resources: Land, Water, Food and Energy
Access to land, water, energy and food are all pressing issues that have often led
to social conflict in Brazil. There are millions of landless rural workers in Brazil,
while 1% of all rural properties amass as much as half of the vast country’s farmland
(IBGE 2019). More than four million Brazilians lack access to safe drinking water
(WHO/UNICEF 2019), 400 thousand lack access to modern energy services (IEA
2019), and 13 million are undernourished (FAO 2019). Land and water, in particular,
have been significant sources of conflict in rural areas. Annually there were on average
over 1000 land conflicts in Brazil between 2003 and 2019, some persisting year
on year. There was also a noticeable increase in water conflicts, from 87 recorded
in 2010 to 489 in 2019. Overall, such conflicts resulted in 411 murders between
2010 and 2019, plus other adverse impacts on many thousands. Most cases have
involved large landowners and private agribusiness, systematically at the expense of
indigenous peoples and the rural poor (CPT 2020).
The surge of ethanol markets in the 2000s saw the doubling of the sugarcane
area in Brazil. It expanded from 4.82 Mha in 2000 to 8.92 Mha in 2008, after being
fairly stable since the late 1980s (MAPA 2013). That expansion had two significant
implications on access to land. First, ownership and control over land became further
consolidated, as small farms at the sugarcane frontiers were either bought out or
turned into contracted sugarcane suppliers. This pressure increased, for instance, on
small dairy farms in São Paulo state (Novo et al. 2010). Second, it raised opportunity
costs and increased disputes between sugarcane farmers and indigenous peoples in
frontier regions. Most notably, sugarcane expansion has inflamed conflicts with the
Guarani-Kaiowá indigenous people in Mato Grosso do Sul State, hindering their legal
access to land and aggravating violence (see CPT 2013). Due to limited investments,
the sugarcane area remained more or less stable at 8.5–10 Mha between 2010 and
18 For the 2012/2013 harvest, the government made available R$115.2 billion (about USD 57 billion)
in public credit to private agribusiness. For a comparison, public credit available to all family farming
is at R$18 billion (about USD 8.9 billion) (MAPA 2012b).
107
These biofuel production strategies thus reveal a profound imbalance in the allocation of power, roles, benefits, and burdens in the emerging bioeconomy. While control
and value-added are retained mainly by private agribusiness—and previously also
Petrobras, a company of mixed capital—the rural poor have been allocated at most
with only the least valuable roles, with hardly any control, and minimal gains. In fact,
their situation of need has often been exploited, as in the case of cheap degrading
labor in sugarcane cutting. This shortage of societal benefit is even though most
investments over the years in agriculture and much of the sector’s financing have
been public.
18 It is, however, the larger agroindustry that gets, in addition to those
investments and credit, a whole new market of sizeable elastic demand, plus higher
profits from increased sugar, corn, or vegetable oil prices.
5.2.2 Access to Resources: Land, Water, Food and Energy
Access to land, water, energy and food are all pressing issues that have often led
to social conflict in Brazil. There are millions of landless rural workers in Brazil,
while 1% of all rural properties amass as much as half of the vast country’s farmland
(IBGE 2019). More than four million Brazilians lack access to safe drinking water
(WHO/UNICEF 2019), 400 thousand lack access to modern energy services (IEA
2019), and 13 million are undernourished (FAO 2019). Land and water, in particular,
have been significant sources of conflict in rural areas. Annually there were on average
over 1000 land conflicts in Brazil between 2003 and 2019, some persisting year
on year. There was also a noticeable increase in water conflicts, from 87 recorded
in 2010 to 489 in 2019. Overall, such conflicts resulted in 411 murders between
2010 and 2019, plus other adverse impacts on many thousands. Most cases have
involved large landowners and private agribusiness, systematically at the expense of
indigenous peoples and the rural poor (CPT 2020).
The surge of ethanol markets in the 2000s saw the doubling of the sugarcane
area in Brazil. It expanded from 4.82 Mha in 2000 to 8.92 Mha in 2008, after being
fairly stable since the late 1980s (MAPA 2013). That expansion had two significant
implications on access to land. First, ownership and control over land became further
consolidated, as small farms at the sugarcane frontiers were either bought out or
turned into contracted sugarcane suppliers. This pressure increased, for instance, on
small dairy farms in São Paulo state (Novo et al. 2010). Second, it raised opportunity
costs and increased disputes between sugarcane farmers and indigenous peoples in
frontier regions. Most notably, sugarcane expansion has inflamed conflicts with the
Guarani-Kaiowá indigenous people in Mato Grosso do Sul State, hindering their legal
access to land and aggravating violence (see CPT 2013). Due to limited investments,
the sugarcane area remained more or less stable at 8.5–10 Mha between 2010 and
18 For the 2012/2013 harvest, the government made available R$115.2 billion (about USD 57 billion)
in public credit to private agribusiness. For a comparison, public credit available to all family farming
is at R$18 billion (about USD 8.9 billion) (MAPA 2012b).