B 1.1. Wont the increase in sugar-cane production, taking up huge areas in Brazil, bring about difficulties with food production?
With an 850 million hectares (ha) area, Brazil has a large fraction of its territory with the conditions to economically sustain the agricultural production, while maintaining vast forest areas with different biomes. Today, farming areas amount to 60 million ha (just about 7 percent of the territory, 21 million ha of which taken up by soybean crops, and 12 million ha by corn). Pasture areas correspond to around 227 million ha, including a portion displaying a certain level of degradation; forest areas (including commercial wood production) total 464 million ha. Estimates by EMBRAPA* indicate that there are still 100 million hectares that can support the growing of annual-cycle species. Additionally, an area equivalent to 20 million hectares is expected to be freed up thanks to technological improvements in cattle breeding. The area currently covered with sugar-cane crops represent only 0.6 percent of the countrys territory (0.3 percent for ethanol, which substitutes for 40 percent of t
