Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, on a tour focused on ethanol and other bio-fuels, a sector in which Brazil is a global leader, signed a cooperation agreement with Dutch Prime Minister Jan Peter Balkenende on April 11 that will allow Brazil and the Netherlands to work together on the sustainable production of biofuels and to help developing nations establish their own crops to make alternatives to fossil fuels. Dutch Foreign Minister Maxime Verhagen said Brazil, the world’s largest producer of ethanol from sugar cane, is well placed to help the European Union meet its target of having biofuels make up 10 percent of fuel needs in the bloc’s transport sector by 2020.
But he said that the ethanol has to be produced sustainably - meaning without muscling out food crops or leading to deforestation. “This is in both our interests,” Verhagen said. “It is in your interest as an exporter to a potentially enormous market, and it is in our interest because we want to honour our European commitments and diversify our energy mix to avoid being overly dependent on too few suppliers.” The Brazilian president also defended biofuels, saying they are not responsible for rising food prices.
He said food prices are rising because more of the world’s poor are earning enough to buy more and better food, and because people are living longer. “There is ... no relation with biofuels,” he said. Balkenende however said energy demand is influencing inflation. Brazilian presidential spokesman Marcelo Baumbach said bio-fuels are a cleaner alternative that causes less harm to the environment. EU ethanol consumption was estimated at nearly 2.7 billion litres, with imports accounting for about 37 percent of that total.