Cassava ethanol: Alternative product for family production systems?

In several countries, such as Nigeria, Thailand and Brazil, cassava stands out as an economic crop, generating products and by-products intended for human consumption, whether directly (in natura flour and root) or indirectly (use of starch in manufacturing of industrialized food products).

In Brazil, the destination of cassava produced takes into account regional peculiarities. In the South, Southeast and, more recently, in the Center-West, its cultivation focuses on the production of starch for the starch industry, and in the North and Northeast, on the production of flour for food.

Small family producers in the Southeast region cultivate cassava with high technology, while in the North and Northeast regions it is exploited with low technology. These differences make the small producer in Paraná more efficient than the small cassava producer in the states of the North and Northeast region, where, combined with flour, ethanol is produced in an artisanal way, in the form of fermented drinks, called Caxiri and Tiquira.

Agribusiness in its international context has been called upon to meet the growing global demand for renewable fuels, which emit fewer greenhouse gases into the atmosphere, and cassava is beginning to emerge as a major “commodity” for the international agricultural market, with great potential for ethanol production, thus combining it with corn and sugar cane crops. Despite having a greater energy balance than the main grasses used in the production of biofuels - such as corn in the United States and sugar cane in Brazil, as well as having a much lower production cost than the aforementioned crops, this culture needs more studies to make its production chain viable.

With the advent of cassava ethanol for biofuel and the industrialization of roots on a commercial scale, the implementation of small plants could be an alternative to begin studying the behavior of the cassava production chain, with special attention to the negative impact on production of raw materials for food. Although, initially, estimates of cassava production for transformation into biofuel are generating great expectations for small producers, public agents and the market, it is still very premature to report conclusive studies on its use on an industrial scale. and commercial.

Learning from mistakes made in the not too distant past, with the implementation of industrial plants for the production of biofuel from Castor bean crops, we can resize and redirect policies and planning for investment in a process that truly allows the inclusion of small producers within of the cassava production chain aimed at ethanol agribusiness in Piauí. We clarify that we are not comparing cultivation systems or culture, but the entire process of public policies, producer organization and market structuring, so as not to make the same mistakes.

The technical feasibility of producing ethanol from cassava has been proven, but the following questions must be analyzed:

1 – What will the cassava-derived food production market be like?

2 – With the growing study and demands for this technological alternative, how is the planning for public policies in this segment of Agribusiness?

José Oscar Lustosa de Oliveira Júnior

Researcher at Embrapa Meio-Norte