Assessing and guiding sustainability in Brazilian sugar cane production

Abstract

New demands on land and the resources needed for the production of biomass for modem bioenergy can lead to competition for land and the underpinning resources that support food production, in turn, leading to a decline in productive capacity, ecosystem services and habitat quality. It is proposed that carefully integrated, knowledge-led, implementation of bioenergy cropping systems could support intensified food production and simultaneously enhance ecosystem service provision, raising the overall economic productivity of land in the medium to long term and supporting local development. In this context, the aim of the collaborative research here proposed is to assess sugar cane contribution to ecosystem services and human well-being at landscape level and develop novel tools for land management of sugar cane production. The empirical focus of the research will be three production sites in the states of São Paulo and Goiás where sugar cane is currently cultivated for ethanol and sugar production by the company Raizen. The exchange project will entail four types of activities: (i) model development, integration and refinement: (ii) collection and integration of empirical data; (iii) data analysis; and (iv) results dissemination and networking. It will consist of four missions (two in Brazil and two in the UK) over a period of 2 years in which the participants to this project will collaborate for the production of a scientific publication. In this context, the research will build on and contribute to a set of closely related projects carried out at the two partner institutions. (AU)