Power is sweet: sugarcane in the global ethanol assemblage

Abstract

New alliances between Brazil and the US for ethanol production, transport, and trade are revitalising and expanding the centuries-old sugarcane plantation system in the Americas. In this paper I adopt the concept of global assemblages, building on the work of Aihwa Ong, Stephen Collier, and Saskia Sassen, to draw the contours of an ‘ethanol assemblage’, which includes states, corporations, growers, technologies, urban consumers, and rural communities and landscapes. Though important to conceptualise agrofuels as a global phenomenon, it is also necessary to recognise the distinct regional patterns that cohere around various aspects of this polymorphous industry. Therefore, I focus on alliances around sugarcane ethanol, paying particular attention to the role of Miami as a global city serving as a gateway to information, investment, and commodities for the public/private and national/transnational entities that are engaged in the hemispheric project of ethanol promotion, production and distribution.

Keywords:

• agrofuels
• biofuels
• ethanol
• sugarcane
• political ecology
• assemblages
• US
• Florida
• Brazil

Notes

¹Quote from the CBS television show, Cane (2007). Because of alleged similarities to the Fanjul family, which owns the largest sugar company in Florida, the Fanjuls won the right to have the scripts reviewed by legal counsel before filming. Alex, the character quoted here, is described as seeing the future in ethanol.

²Global fuel ethanol production more than doubled between 2001 and 2006 and biodiesel production grew six-fold (Worldwatch Institute 2007).

³Recently there has been a spate of critical physical science studies produced by teams of ecologists and atmospheric scientists. Two studies published in Science concluded that clearing land to promote biofuels such as ethanol will do more to exacerbate global warming than using gasoline or other fossil fuels. Both studies focused on emission of greenhouse gases brought about by land use change, due to the release of carbon sequestered in existing forests and grasslands. Calculating this hitherto unaccounted for ‘carbon debt’ for palm, soybean, sugarcane, and corn biofuels, researchers concluded that converting rainforests, peatlands, savannas, or grasslands in Southeast Asia, Latin America, or the US would increase global warming pollution for decades, if not centuries (Fargione et al. 2008). Additionally, increases in US corn production to produce ethanol would drive conversion of carbon-sequestering ecosystems to cropland around the world. Moreover, corn-based ethanol nearly doubles greenhouse emissions over 30 years, as compared to gasoline (Searchinger et al. 2008).

⁴The energy balance – input to output – for corn ethanol is approximately 1:1.3 compared to 1:8.0 for sugarcane ethanol (Bourne 2007).

⁵I have attended conferences and symposia held in Miami and have participated as a panelist in conference discussions of biofuels in the hemisphere.

⁶Armando Codina was a key fundraiser and organiser of the FTAA events (Hoag 2003).

⁷In 2008 Odebrecht Construction was selected as ‘Contractor of the Year’ by the Miami Chapter of the American Institute of Architects. Among the firm's many Miami projects are the Adrienne Arsht Center for the Performing Arts, American Airlines Arena, Golden Glades Interchange, the Florida International University Stadium, and the expansion of the Miami International Airport.

⁸Attending the appropriations ceremony were Charles Cobb, Jr., President of Gateway Florida, in his role as a University of Miami Life Trustee and US Congresswoman Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, ‘who was instrumental in securing the appropriation’ (University of Miami 2010).

⁹For example, speaking 15 April 2008 at FIU's Energy Business Forum, which was sponsored by Shell Oil Company, Brian Dean (at the time director of the Interamerican Ethanol Commission) spoke on ‘potential for biofuels in the Americas’.

¹⁰US Sugar Corporation has at the same time agreed to sell 73,000 acres of their landholdings (while retaining 107,000 acres) to the state of Florida for $536 million for the purpose of Everglades restoration.

¹¹Estimates of ‘energy sprawl’ for various fuels find that the ‘most landscape-consuming are biofuels ethanol and biodiesel which require up to 500 square miles’ to produce the energy of, for example, 30 square miles of wind farms or six square miles of solar (Alexander 2009).

¹²In a comprehensive review, Vanwey finds that benefits of biofuels ‘have been unevenly spread across countries and between large and small producers of feedstocks’. She concludes that ‘agile and well-capitalised agribusinesses’ are positioned to take advantage of ‘subsidies, protectionism and rising international prices’ whereas ‘in the developing world, the impacts will be virtually uniformly negative’, i.e. displacement of small producers, increasing prices for food, decreasing food security, and agrarian boom and bust cycles (Vanwey 2008, 207, 211).

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Gail Hollander

I thank Jun Borras, Philip McMichael, and Ian Scoones, who organised the workshop on Biofuels, Land and Agrarian Change held at Saint Mary's University, Halifax, Nova Scotia in October 2009 and together created an intellectually generous and stimulating milieu. I presented an earlier version of this research at the Environmental Politics Colloquium, University of California, Berkeley, where I enjoyed the support of the S.V. Ciriacy Wantrup Sabbatical Fellowship in Natural Resource Economics. The comments of three anonymous reviewers have much improved the paper. Moreover, Philip McMichael's careful review and spot-on critique were of immeasurable help in strengthening the arguments.