Produção de biodiesel no Brasil, inclusão social e ganhos ambientais

Abstract

The objective of this paper is to critically analyze the social inclusion and environmental impacts of the National Program for Production and Use of Biodiesel (PNPB). The results show that social and environmental gains were well below the Federal Government's initial expectations. In the social area, the social inclusion potential of the program was severely impaired, mainly because the cultivation of castor beans did not get the expected participation, and the supply expansion was based on mechanized soybean plantations, with low impacts on social inclusion. In the environmental area, there were no objective criteria of measurement that considered the effect of the expansion of soybean cultivation on deforestation through the induction effect of the expansion of cattle ranching in forested areas in the Cerrado and the Amazon rainforest.