Brazil taps small farmers for biofuels campaign

Reuters - Africa
Tue Aug 24, 2010 11:00pm GMT

* Programs backs family farming for biofuels
* Seeks to diversify crops for biofuels production
* Critics say program inefficient and politically driven

By Brian Ellsworth GETULIO VARGAS, Brazil, Aug 25 (Reuters) - With its biofuels business increasingly dominated by giant corporations, Brazil is seeking to extend its biofuels sector to include farmers like Lucas Scariot, who makes around $10,000 per year from selling grain.

For the past three years, Scariot has sold soy beans at a premium over market prices to a biofuels company under a government program aimed at supporting small farms and creating jobs in the countryside while cutting fuel imports.

This year Scariot planted canola for the first time in a field he usually leaves fallow during the winter, diversifying the region's soy-dependent agricultural base and providing a new raw material for local biodiesel production.

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