Unveiling Discourses: Unsustainability and Power of Agro Fuels

Abstract

This paper highlights the economic interests embedded the socio-environmental discourse on agro fuels, showing corporate alliances between major multinational agribusiness companies, biotechnology and the petroleum and automotive sector. Questioning the unsustainability of biofuels, the purposes guiding its production were discussed: automotive vehicles. When considerations were raised about the geopolitical plot of agro fuels, the concepts of “accumulation by dispossession” and “new imperialism” were mentioned, pointing to an insertion of Latin American, African and Caribbean countries into the international division of labor as raw material and energy suppliers to the so-called developed countries. To approach the agro fuels social discourse, , due to its emblematic character, the National Program for Production and Use of Biodiesel – PNPB was highlighted. PNPB is a large scale program aiming biodiesel production, which seeks to justify and legitimize itself by the addition of family farming to the production chain as a way of generating income in the countryside. Although the program highlights the family farming participation, it is observed in its production profiles, at national level, the prevalence of agribusiness. This paper tries to break down the hegemonic socio-environmental discourse of agro fuels using the relevant bibliography, current legislation on biodiesel, and secondary data, with emphasis on those disseminated by National Agency of Petroleum, Natural Gas and Biofuels – ANP.