Militant Brazilian Opposition to Bush-Lula Ethanol Accords
21 Mar 2007by Isabella Kenfield and Roger Burbach
During President Bush’s visit to Brazil thousands of poor, rural
members of the international Via Campesina social movement and the
Brazilian Movement of the Landless Rural Workers (MST) orchestrated
massive, non-violent occupations of multinational agribusiness
corporations throughout the country. Nine hundred women occupied the
Cevasa ethanol distillery in São Paulo. According to the press
statement released by Via Campesina, the protest was against “the
proposal by the United States government to benefit large ethanol
companies in Brazil, which is not in the interest of the majority of
the Brazilian population.” Cevasa is the largest producer of sugarcane
in Brazil, and last year 63 percent of its shares were bought by the
US-based Cargill corporation.
Other occupations included paper mills in Rio Grande do Sul, owned by
Stora Enso Oyj of Finland and Votarantin and Aracruz of Brazil. All of
these actions were taken to protest the model of economic growth via
industrialized agriculture for export. The social movements and their
supporters in civil society assert that while Brazil’s agroexport boom
may boost Brazil’s gross domestic product (GDP), it is increasing
poverty and marginalization for the rural poor due to land
concentration, environmental destruction, unemployment and labor
exploitation. According to the Via Campesina press statement, for every
100 hectares (250 acres) planted with sugarcane (from which Brazilian
ethanol is produced) only one job is generated, while on a family farm,
35 jobs are generated. In Brazil, agribusiness is controlled by a
handful of multinational corporations that are usurping more and more
Brazilian territory, and expelling more rural poor to the
already-swollen urban centers.
The occupations’ organizers were careful to highlight that their
critique is not of ethanol itself, but of the paradigm being imposed on
the industry: large-scale, industrialized production for export to the
Global North (especially the US), entirely controlled by multinational
agribusiness corporations. At a press conference – held by Via
Campesina, the MST, the Central Union of Workers (CUT), and the
Catholic Church’s Pastoral Land Commission (CPT) – Bishop Tomás
Balduino said, “The pact between Brazil and the United States for the
promotion of ethanol is sinister. It’s just going to promote death,
marginalization, poverty and the destruction of the environment because
it defends the interests of large multinationals.”
Ethanol is emerging as a way for powerful international capital
interests to ally, merge and strengthen. João Pedro Stedile, of
the national coordination of the MST and Via Campesina, declared: “Bush
came to Brazil as a messenger boy for the multinational companies, the
agribusiness companies, the oil companies and the automobile companies
that want to control the biofuels.” George W.’s brother, Florida state
Governor Jeb Bush, was recently appointed to co-chair the
Inter-American Ethanol Commission (IEC), which has as its mission to
“promote the usage of ethanol in the gasoline pools of the Western
Hemisphere.” The other co-chairs are Roberto Rodrigues, President of
the Superior Council of Agribusiness of Brazil and Luis Alberto Moreno,
President of the Inter-American Development Bank. Formation of the IEC
highlights the alliance being built between US and Brazilian petro and
agro capital, and reveals why the current discourse of ethanol as a
renewable and sustainable form of energy is cast in neoliberal language
that ignores the disastrous impact this corporate model has on society
and the environment.
The social movements and their supporters propose that Brazilian
ethanol production should be in the hands of small farmers, as part of
a diversified agricultural system in which local food production for
Brazilians is prioritized, thereby assuring land, livelihoods and jobs
for the rural poor. Brazil should focus on producing ethanol for its
large internal market, not to sustain US consumption.
Yet despite the widespread protests and opposition by the very segments
of civil society that helped bring Lula to power in 2002, and
re-elected him for a second term last October, an accord between Brazil
and the US has been signed for joint research and cooperation to
increase ethanol production, export, and trade as a global commodity.
The agreement indicates that Lula is cooperating with Bush and
agribusiness in order to ensure the industry remains controlled by
large capital interests while the Brazilian rural poor sink deeper into
poverty. “Today there is no more agrarian reform, there is
agribusiness,” said Bishop Balduino. “Make no mistake, this accord will
only benefit the multinationals and the elite.”
Regardless, the voice of dissent articulated through the occupations by
Via Campesina and the MST during Bush’s visit garnered national and
international attention, and strengthened the resolve of the social
movements. The MST is determined to challenge the Lula government and
is stepping up its land occupations, including the seizure of lands
that could be used for ethanol production. According to João
Pedro Stedile of the MST, “the Lula government is supporting the mode
of agricultural production known as agribusiness that allies the
landowners with the transnational corporations. This is going to
provoke a popular reaction sooner rather than later.”
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Isabella Kenfield is an Associate of the Center for the Study of the
Americas (CENSA) based in Berkeley, California. Currently she is a
journalist living in Curitiba, Brazil and has written on social
movements, multinational corporations and biofuels.
Roger Burbach is the director of the CENSA. He has written extensively
on Latin America, including, “The Pinochet Affair: State Terrorism and
Global Justice.” He is also the co-author with Jim Tarbell of:
“Imperial Overstretch: George W. Bush and the Hubris of Empire.”