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McClain heading to Brazil |
BY
CHRISTOPHER CURRY
STAR-BANNER
OCALA - County Commissioner Stan McClain will soon
head from his south Marion district to South
America.
The UF Institute of Food and Agricultural
Sciences, better known by the acronym IFAS, is
paying for an international field trip for McClain
and others to Brazil next month to get a firsthand
look at how one of the world's leading producers
of biofuels has reduced its dependence on gasoline
and petroleum.
"There's nowhere else in the world where it's
working as well as the state of Sao Paulo,
Brazil," said Walter Bowen, the associate director
of International Programs at IFAS.
Bowen said Brazil started to cultivate sugar cane
for the production of ethanol in the 1970s. Now,
between ethanol and biodiesel made with oil drawn
from the seeds of crops, Bowen said Brazil no
longer has to import foreign oil at this time when
prices are reaching an all-time high. A few years
ago, the country introduced flex-fuel vehicles,
which can run on a mix of gasoline and ethanol.
The UF trip to Brazil will include commissioners
and IFAS extension agents from five Florida
counties with strong agricultural bases. Besides
McClain and Marion County Extension Agent David
Holmes, there will be representatives from Suwanee,
Santa Rosa, Palm Beach and Leon counties.
"I'm looking at it two ways - as fact finding and
from an economic development standpoint," McClain
said.
And Bowen said a turn toward ethanol and biofuels
to run vehicles could be a boost for farmers. He
said sweet sorghum, instead of sugar cane, is one
crop that could be grown in an area like Marion
for the production of ethanol. He said wood or
wood waste is another possibility.
For biodiesel production, Bowen said once-obscure
Jatropha tree is increasingly being cultivated.
Oil drawn from its bean is used in the production
of biodiesel.
Here in the United States, there's been criticism
over the amount of corn and water needed in the
production of ethanol. While ethanol has meant a
boon for sugar cane farmers in Brazil, there are
also environmental concerns there.
On May 16, the Thomson Financial News reported Sao
Paulo put a 120-day moratorium on new ethanol
factories until a study was completed on the
environmental impact of rising sugar cane
cultivation. |
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