Measurement of Sugar Cane Chain in Brazil

Abstract

Despite the historical importance of the sugarcane business in Brazil, which is as old in the country as its colonization, it has never been “photographed in widescreen”. This research on the mapping and quantification of business generated in the sugarcane chain in 2008 for the first time gives the scale of the entire sugarcane productive chain in Brazil. The sector now shows the numbers that indicate the industry’s role in building the country's GDP, as well as in job creation, tax generation, and the distribution (capillary) of economic activities. By applying the method Strategic Management of Agro-Systems (GESIS), developed by the first author, Professor Marcos Fava Neves, coordinator of the Marketing & Strategic Projects and Research Center, USP (MARKESTRAT), it was found that the sugarcane sector GDP is around $28.1 billion USD, equivalent to almost 2% of the Brazilian GDP—or almost all of the income generated in a year in a country like Uruguay. The majority of the industry’s inputs are local, explaining its favorable trade balance situation. A series of new products has become increasingly more important and a major transformation is going on in this sector that has one of the oldest and, at the same time, most modern plants with regard to clean energy on the planet.