By: KENNETH MAXWELL

Folha de São Paulo - Op-ed section - page A2     

Last week in Asuncion Paraguay, Evo Morales of Bolivia cited an editorial from The Economist of London, and lectured Brazilian president Lula on the merits of Fidel Castro's views on ethanol. The Economist had declared "Castro is Right" when he said that maize based bio fuels diverted the food supply to feed "hungry cars" In fact, Fidel had gone much further. He had called the ethanol deal between Brazil and the US "the internationalization of genocide." So what is going on here?

Two facts
First, maize based ethanol is indeed being promoted by the heavily subsidized, tariff protected, and politically powerful European and US farm lobbies. But maize based ethanol is not cheap, nor is it environmentally friendly, nor is its production processes energy efficient.
And despite billion of dollars of subsidies, maize based ethanol in the US, which comprises 44.5%of global ethanol production last year, still accounts for a mere 3.5 % percent of US fuel consumption.

Second, sugar based ethanol is cheaper and cleaner. Its production is no longer heavily subsidized. With 30 years of hard won experience, Brazil now accounts for 42.2% of global ethanol production, all of this based on sugar cane, and 3/4 of automobiles are adapted to run on ethanol. Moreover, as Lula correctly pointed out to Evo Morales last week; "a experiencia brasileira nao compromete a seguranca alimentar."

So why Fidel's concern for the global danger of maize produced ethanol? Does not Cuba produce sugar?
Indeed it does, but Cuba's sugar has no market. Yet, just 90 miles across the Florida strait, former Florida Governor Jeb Bush now co chairs the Inter-American Ethanol commission together with former Brazilian agriculture minister Roberto Rodriguez and current IDB president Alberto Moreno. It must be patently obvious to him that if there is anywhere set to prosper in the 21st century from the valorization of sugar based ethanol it will be a post Castro Cuba with its pre Castro access to the vast US market restored; a Cuba without him of course, and which undoubtedly will be exploiting to its own great advantage the knowledge and technology developed by Brazil.

KENNETH MAXWELL is a weekly op-ed columnist (every Thursday) for Folha de São Paulo, Brazil's leading newspaper