Sugar Production in Brazil

• We've been producing independent documentaries on farming and farm machinery worldwide for almost 20 years
• We've traveled to many of the most significant farming regions in the world for our film projects
• We publish our films in multiple languages on DVD and on demand on our YouTube channel
• We frequently bring you insights into our work
• For this short story, we're taking you with us to Brazil
• We filmed on location at four different times of the year for a three-part documentary called "Agriculture in South America"
• We visited Chile, Argentina, and Brazil
• In Brazil, we focused on sugarcane harvest in addition to the soybean harvest
• Sugarcane


  Has been cultivated in Brazil since the 16th century
• Sugarcane farming received a real boost by the ethanol program which was promoted after the oil crisis in the early 1970s
• Flex fuel cars


  Can be filled with either pure ethanol or petrol
• Flex fuel cars now account for 90% of car sales in Brazil
• Sugarcane is cultivated on around 9 million hectares nationwide in Brazil, an area almost the size of Scotland and Wales combined
• A city of 650,000 inhabitants in the state of Sao Paulo is the main hub for sugarcane growing
• It took several weeks of research and dozens of emails and phone calls to gain permission to film the world's second largest sugarcane producer in action for our documentary
• The company farms around 350,000 hectares across several states and runs 10 sugarcane factories
• Sugarcane harvesting process


  1. Topper chops off upper green leaves

  2. Knockdown roller pushes stalks forward

  3. Base cutters chop stalks above roots

  4. Feeder housing chops stalks to 20cm

  5. Blowers separate leaves
• The harvesters have around 300 horsepower each
• Grain carts with up to 60 cubic meters in load volume are used to transport the sugarcane billets to the factories
• Sugarcane is a perennial crop and is harvested five times on this farm
• The peak harvests range up to 180 tons per hectare
• The world's largest sugarcane producer farms an unbelievable 860,000 hectares and runs 24 factories
• The growing of sugarcane is not without controversy in some parts of Brazil
• Our films are available on DVD and on our new on-demand video platform at www.farmworld.tv
• We'd like to thank all our viewers for their support