PLANTING SUGAR CANE IN THE VAST BRAZILIAN GRASSLANDS

The 16^th Brazilian Conference on Irrigation and Draining (Conird) will be held in the city of Goiania, capital of the state of Goais, Brazil, from the 25^th to the 30^th of June, 2006, to discuss new technologies and the potential for agriculture in the “Cerrado” grasslands of central Brazil.

The Cerrado is the world’s most biologically rich savanna. It has over 10,000 species of plants, of which 45% are exclusive to the Cerrado, and it stretches across nearly 500 million acres of Brazil - an area nearly three times the size of Texas. The Cerrado also feeds three of the major water basins in South America: the Amazon, Paraguay and São Francisco Rivers.

The Cerrado has yet to live up to its full agricultural potential. Brazilian farmers have just recently learned how to correct the soil’s natural acidity, a process that can be executed inexpensively using calcium and magnesium. Planting sugar cane in the Cerrado, however, presents major challenges, such as controlling environmental impacts (which may overflow into the Amazon basin) and overcoming the logistics obstacles presented by a precarious or inexistent infrastructure.

Due to the abundance of cheap land open to investments, however, foreign corporations seeking to do business in Brazil would do well to take a close look at the region's agricultural potential. The benefits may very well outweigh the costs, especially as land prices go up in the interior of Sao Paulo state, Brazil's main sugar cane-planting region.