Spurred by ethanol-generated expectations,

Brazil’s sugarcane boom mobilizes companies

One of these companies is the Japanese transnational corporation Ajinomoto, which not only produces food seasonings and flavorings, it also has an Ajinomoto Fertilizers division. This division, which produces primarily foliar fertilizers (applied to plant leaves), is focusing on developing specific products for sugarcane.

The excellent results obtained by Ajinomoto in Brazil have led the company to install fertilizer plants in Peru and Thailand. In Brazil it has four factories, including one that produces fertilizers, which is located in the municipality of Limeira, state of Sao Paulo. In seven years, the company went from producing 10 thousand liters of foliar fertilizers per year, to the current 1.5 million liters, with a projected 50 percent growth over the coming year.

Another company that is investing heavily in the sugar-alcohol industry is Cargill, through its fertilizer division Mosaic, installed in the petrochemical industrial area of Cubatao, in Sao Paulo. This division launched its first product two years ago, and it has just invested the equivalent of US$ 964,436 in a product called ATR, which will be placed on the market next year, and which, according to the company’s engineers, will increase cane plantation productivity in up to 10 percent.

In addition, Mosaic is importing a technology known as P2P from its parent company in the United States. This technology analyzes large agricultural extensions via satellite with the aim of offering fertilizers according to the level of soil degradation and the age of the plants, which vary from hectare to hectare. It is already in use in the United States in corn crops, and it is now being adapted to the needs of Brazilian sugarcane. The company expects to have this new development available in Brazil by 2009.

In Montevideo, Enildo Iglesias © Rel-UITA September 26, de 2007