Ecobreves – BRAZIL: Government Aims to End Sugarcane Burnoffs

By IPS Correspondents and - - Reprint | | Print |

RIO DE JANEIRO, Feb 2 2009 (IPS) - Brazil's Environment Ministry this month will launch the Agro-Ecological Zoning of Sugarcane and a new law to reduce the burnoffs applied before plantings, with the goal of ending them in 2020. The alternatives include new machinery and new techniques, such as turning the stubble into biofertilizer.

There will also be “a ban on new cultivation in areas with a slope of more than 12 percent,” where it would not be possible to use machinery, Roberto Vizentin, of the ministry's territorial regulation department, told Tierramérica.

Brazil has seven million hectares of sugarcane fields. Another six million are forecast by 2017. The annual yield is more than 400 million tons of cane, according to official figures. With a reduction of burnoffs, there will be less carbon dioxide emitted into the air, and a lower risk of spreading fire.