Brazil ethanol boom hides diseased lungs and deaths

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Sep 30: herniated discs; dehydration; and exhaustion. Sugar workers suffer about eight times as many injuries as farm labourers in Brazil’s citrus and grain industries, government statistics show.

Although ethanol is cleaner than gasoline, its production pollutes the air and makes people sick in Brazil, Sao Paulo governor Jose Serra says. Brazilian farmers set fire to their fields the night before harvest to burn off leaves that get in the way of cutters. Last year, cane fires consumed an area the size of Haiti. They spewed 7,50,000 tonne of particles into the skies over Sao Paulo state, Serra says. The burning causes a 20-50% increase in hospital and doctor visits for bronchitis, asthma, and other respiratory illnesses in people who live in Sao Paulo’s sugar cane belt.

In a field near Cosmopolis, 70 miles northwest of Sao Paulo, Joao Bernardinho Neto wheezes with each swing of his machete, stirring up clouds of ash left over from the fire the night before.