A 2007 article discusses how profiteers including Soros and Jeb Bush are investing in Brazilian ethanol crops, that President George Bush promoted a joint Brazil-US biofuel accord, and that Soros was betting the tariff would come down in 2010.
7/31/2007, "Losing forests to fuel cars," Washington Post, Sabrina Valle
"The roots of this transformation lie in the worldwide demand for ethanol, recently boosted by a U.S. Senate bill that would mandate the use of 36 billion gallons of ethanol by 2022,
- more than six times the capacity of the United States' 115 ethanol refineries.
- to promote ethanol production in Latin America and the Caribbean.
U.S. companies and investors -- including George Soros and agribusiness giants Archer Daniels Midland and Cargill -- are staking out territory in Brazil, expecting even greater growth in biofuels.
"There was already a race for Brazilian ethanol, and President Bush's announcements gave more credibility to the process," said Roberto Rodrigues, former Brazilian agriculture minister, who formed the Interamerican Ethanol Commission with former Florida
- governor Jeb Bush in December....
Sugarcane is touted by environmentalists as a better option than corn for producing ethanol. Sugarcane ethanol costs half as much to produce, and the process is five times as efficient in its use of fossil fuels.
Lured by the prospect of making ethanol from Brazilian sugarcane, many U.S. firms are trying to catch up with European and Asian investors. The company Soros is backing, Adecoagro, has become one of the main investors in Brazilian ethanol, planning to spend $1 billion to build three plants over the next five years. Goldman Sachs and
- Carlyle Group are also behind new ethanol investments in Brazil.
In addition, as use of corn-based ethanol grows in the United States, rising prices are influencing American soybean farmers to switch to corn. And as the United States, the world's largest soybean producer, cuts soybean plantings, buyers are looking to Brazil, the No. 2 soy producer, to expand its production. Brazilian soybean production is already at record levels and is predicted to increase another 4.5 percent this year, according to Abiove, an industry association.
"There is a dual pressure in Brazil," Buchanan said. "The direct pressure to expand production of sugarcane and the indirect pressure to expand Brazilian soy,
- if U.S. soy is reduced."...
"Brazil is the only country with a vast amount of land available for immediate expansion of sustainable agriculture. If the U.S. races after ethanol, soybean prices tend to climb and demand will be supplied by Brazil," said Carlo Lovatelli, corporate affairs director for Bunge, one of the largest soy traders in Brazil, headquartered in White Plains, N.Y.
Lovatelli, who also represents companies responsible for 93 percent of all soy traded in Brazil, said that if demand escalates,
- Brazilian production could double in as little as three to four years....
Brazil is already the scene of the most extensive deforestation in the world, accounting for 42 percent of the world's net forest losses from 2000 to 2005, according to a report by the Food and Agriculture Organization, an arm of the United Nations. Nongovernmental organizations say 7 million hectares of the Amazon were cleared in the past five years by soybean farmers with the help of multinational companies such as Cargill....
- The Cerrado, however, has not had the spotlight that the Amazon has, and so the environmental impact of expansion of the sugarcane business into the savanna is under less international scrutiny.
This month, Brazilian Agriculture Minister Reinhold Stephanes announced new measures to avoid devastation from sugarcane plantations. But some groups say enforcement would be effective only with large investments in mapping tools and ground supervision,
- which the Brazilian government could not afford.
And ethanol investments keep growing. The sugar industry estimates that $17 billion will be invested through 2012 in 86 new sugarcane processing plants, adding to the 330 plants in Brazil today.
So far, the impact of the U.S. thirst for Brazilian ethanol has been blunted by the 51-cent-per-gallon subsidy paid to American corn ethanol producers and by the 54-cent-per-gallon tariff on imported ethanol. The Senate extended the tariff until 2009, even though Bush signed an accord to jointly promote biofuel production with Brazil.
Nevertheless, of the 680 million gallons of ethanol the United States imported last year,
- about 500 million gallons came from Brazil, the world's leading ethanol exporter.
"The tariff was not an eliminating factor when we, last year, had $78-a-barrel oil on a sustained basis," says Roger K. Conway, director for the Agriculture Department's Office of Energy Policy and New Uses. "There certainly could be more imports from Brazil. It depends on energy prices."
Soros's company in Brazil is betting that the United States will have to increase ethanol imports and that a calendar for gradual reduction of the tariff
- could be established from 2010.
"If the U.S. entirely lifts the tariff, demand for ethanol will go through the roof and the pressure on the environment would be enormous," said a former Brazilian secretary of state for science and technology, José Goldemberg,
- speaking at a seminar on Brazilian ethanol in Washington last month."
8/2/2007, "Soros, Goldman Sachs financing destruction of Brazilian forests," Grist
"It's particularly ironic that Soros is working hand-in-hand with the Bush family by investing $1 billion in growing sugarcane in Brazil. Jeb Bush formed the Interamerican Ethanol Commission in December to promote increased ethanol exports from Latin America, leading,
- perhaps not coincidentally to
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12/18/06, "State partners with Brazil for ethanol future,"
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12/20/06, "Jeb Bush creates Interamerican Ethanol Commission," AP
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