Q1. How could you define your occupation precisely?
Repórter Brasil is a NGO specialized in impacts caused by agribusiness, especially labor and social impacts. My name is Marcel Gomes and I’m a coordinator of Biofuel Watch Center, one of the main programs of the NGO.
Q2. How is your work related to the bio-fuels land-use domain?
The expansion of energy crop has changed the land-uses and land-ownership in South America. This has causing agrarian conflicts and concentrating the land in some regions.
Q3. Are you aware of the fact that bio-fuel production induces indirect emissions?
Yes. Biofuel production causes indirect emission when generates deforestation by burning. There is also a problem related to uses of nitrogen fertilizer.
Q4. If so, do you take them into consideration within your work?
Just the deforestation case.
Q5. What are the main social consequences of sugarcane production in Brazil?
Land concentration, migration, overexploitation of labor, some cases of slave labor, but there is also researches arguing that sugarcane cities and also people can make money and improve their living conditions, especially if there is sucargane mills, bionenergy schools and machines mills in the cities.
Q6. Are non-scientific people protesting against those social aftermaths (farmers? the civil society? …)?
Sure. Civil society organizations like NGOs, social movements as MST and rural labor unions.