Brazilian President Kicks Off National Biodiesel Program

BRASILIA, Brazil, August 5, 2005 (ENS) - Brazil's first biodiesel plant in the Northeast was formally inaugurated Thursday, kicking off a multi-pronged national biodiesel development program. The government's biodiesel program is intended to reduce dependence on fossil fuels and also benefit people in Brazil's poorest region - the semi-arid Northeast.

President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva traveled to the city of Floriano, state of Piaui, to participate in the inauguration ceremony.

President Lula da Silva (right) tours Brazil's first biodiesel plant in Floriano. (Photo courtesy Radiobras)

Family farming in the semi-arid region will get a boost from the biodiesel program because the program will use certain crops, especially castor beans, that can be grown easily in the dry conditions there.

In the Floriano region, biodiesel will create 70 jobs at the plant and another 300 in the process of growing and harvesting castor beans and removing the oil from them.

In the first stage of the program, diesel oil across the country will be mixed with a two percent additive of vegetable biodiesel, permitting its use in diesel vehicles without modification.

It is estimated that during the first three years of operation 200,000 family farms in the Northeast, plus another 50,000 farm families in other parts of the country, will enter the biodiesel production chain, the state run news agency Radiobras reports.

According to the program timetable, by 2008 all diesel oil used in Brazil will be two percent vegetable oil. In 2013 the mandatory percentage of vegetable oil will rise to five percent.

In March, Lula opened Brazil's very first biodiesel refinery, the Soyminas plant in the southeastern state of Minas Gerais.

President Lula opens the Soyminas plant in March. (Photo courtesy Radiobras)

In a speech to the people in the nearby city of Buriti after he inaugurated the biodiesel plant, President Lula said the government will assure the purchase of the biodiesel produced by family agriculture.

"From now on," he said, "all of the biodiesel produced will have a social stamp supplied by the Department of the Land Development that will guarantee purchase by the government at prices that adequately pay the productive chain."

The President said the Northeast region will benefit from other developments planned by his government - the construction of coastal highway 101 across six states and the revitalization of the San Francisco River.

The river will be led into two canals, Lula explained - one for the Ceará side and one for the Pernambuco side - to alleviate the suffering of 12 million families who today have a long walk to get a container of drinking water.

Telling the crowd how he grew up in an impoverished family, President Lula said his government is investing in the North so that even poor people can have a bathroom with a shower. "That the owner-of-house can open a tap and have water to drink, to wash, to take a bath, is an extraordinary thing," Lula said.

The biodiesel program, he said, will help Brazil reach energy self-sufficiency. "The introduction of the biodiesel into our energy matrix is a true economic, technological and social revolution in our country," he said.

Arnaldo de Campos, of the Ministry of Agrarian Development (MDA), said today that biodiesel is definitely a growth industry for Brazil.

In his position as coordinator of income generation and value aggregation at the ministry, de Campos expects production to rise to 800 million liters annually in three years.

There is a market potential for another 40 biodiesel plants around the country like the one going into operation in Floriano, he says.

Castor beans, Ricinus communis, are poisonous, bearing the poison ricin, but the oily beans are useful for biodiesel manufacture. (Photo credit unknown)

This would amount to R$200 per month for each family - more than triple the average stipend of US$ 27.10 (R$63) currently distributed by the Family Grant program, according to the Ministry of Social Development.

De Campos expects that, between now and 2008, the project will lead to the maintenance or creation of 400,000 jobs.

"The ability of a small family farmer in the semi-arid region to obtain a monetary return from what he produces is very limited at present. Moreover, the castor bean-biodiesel supply chain is labor intensive," he said.

He explains that the advantage of the castor bean plant is that it can be planted in association with the subsistence crops normally cultivated in the region, especially beans. The beginning of the castor bean harvest is in June, during the drought season, when crops like corn and beans have already completed their growing cycle, which is shorter.

"The program is not designed for farmers to make their livelihoods solely by planting castor beans," Campos notes. "It represents another alternative being offered to the region. And in the case of castor beans, the lack of water happens to be favorable to the plant's growth."