Brazil has truly become the world’s ‘sugar bowl’. In 2012
the country was the leader in world sugar production
(22 per cent) and sugar exports (46 per cent) (FAO 2014,
USDA 2013a). But as we stressed in the introduction,
sugarcane production is about much more than just
sugar. Brazil is the second biggest producer of ethanol in
the world (27 per cent of world total, almost all of which
is distilled from sugarcane) behind the US (57 per cent,
mostly from corn), and collectively these two countries
dominate the renewable fuel markets (RFA 2014).
Although there is some trade and investment between
them – prompting some scholars to articulate a potential
‘ethanol assemblage of the Americas’ (Hollander 2010) –
it remains the case that most ethanol intended for transport
fuel is sold domestically. Brazil has consumed, on
average, 86 per cent of its ethanol production since 2006.