09-14-01: Sugarcane is replaced in the northeast

The area devoted to sugar cane cultivation in the Northeast of Brazil has shrunk by 17% (200,000 hectares) in the last ten years. Many small producers have sold their land or have turned to other crops. Larger companies, waking up to the idea that they cannot compete with cane production in the Centre-South of the country, where production costs are 25% lower, are abandoning less productive, drier areas and investing in verticalization of production and increasing productivity. In Alagoas, for example, the greater part of the producers have decided to reduce the area under cultivation from 100,000 hectares to 80,000 hectares over the next six years. In compensation they are planning ot increase yield from 65 m tons per hectare to 85 m tons. This project requires investment in improved irrigation in an area which suffers from lack of water. The areas which are no longer to be used for sugar cane will be planted with crops like cotton, corn, banana, pineapple and other fruits, or devoted to cattle raising. The large area, which covers five states, Rio Grande do Norte, Paraiba, Pernambuco, Alagoas and Sergipe, has a variety of sub-climates and topographies, which means that there is no single replacement crop for sugar cane.

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