National Plan for Bioenergy in Brazil 2006-2011

Just pasting two small but very important passages from the national plan (page 8-10) that might be worthy to discuss in this forum!



"Achieving the overall purpose implies realizing certain specific objectives,
in conformity with Brazilian public policies, in order to meet the expectations
of society and the demands of the clients:

• To increase the share of the renewable sources of energy in the National
Energy Balance (NEB).
• To guarantee the development of the country's hinterlands and regions
through an expansion of energy farming and adding value to the
production chains linked thereto.
• To create opportunities for the expansion of employment and income
generation within the scope of agribusiness, with increased participation
of small farmers.
• To contribute to the fulfillment of the Brazilian commitment to the Kyoto
Protocol and take advantage of the opportunities open to the country in
said agreement in terms of obtaining carbon credits.
• To induce the creation of an international biofuel market and ensure
Brazil's leadership in the sector.
• To optimize the use of areas affected by human action on natural
vegetation (anthropic impact), maximizing the sustainability of the
production systems, discouraging unjustifiable expansions of the
agricultural frontier and encroachment upon sensitive or protected
systems.
. To develop solutions that integrate agroenergy generation and
eliminate health risks to agribusiness."

The sixth goal seems a little dodgy, as the definition of impacted lands is very unclear.
Very interesting to see how this Brazilian governemnt is framing the new biofuel program under newly created agribusiness institutions such as EMBRAPA ENERGIA and with a short 5-year plan, all housed under the Civil House.


Here´s pasting the R&D priorities from the national plan.

"• Agroecological zoning of species important for energy farming in
traditional areas and in agricultural-frontier expansion areas in order to
direct public and private funding and to detect environmental impacts.
• Traditional and biotechnological plant breeding in order to select plants
species for the production of biofuels and improve significantly the
productivity of the species currently used.
• Socio-economic and strategic studies to develop scenarios, strategies
and geopolicies and to serve as input for public policies on energy and
their link to environmental, economic, social, and business topics.
• Competitiveness studies on systems and production costs, market
niches and opportunities, transportation and storage logistics, obstacles
to production chain performance, non-tariff barriers, attracting
investments, strategy, and geopolitics.
• Energy balances of the life cycles of the production chains in Brazilian
agribusiness with a view to replacing fossil carbon sources with
agroenergy sources, as well as progressively reducing the energy
demand of the production systems.
• Topics linked to the Kyoto Protocol, greenhouse gas emissions, the
clean development mechanism, and carbon credit markets and their
relations with breeding programs, good farming practices, impact on
biomass, nutrition management for ruminants in the context of sustainable
development, all of which coordinated with other territorial, regional and
global initiatives."

I think that our work will respond to the socio-economic research priority.

Cheers

Renata