Socio-environmental impacts of sunflower production as feedstock for biodiesel in southern Minas Gerais/BR.

• Autor(a) principal: RAMOS, N. P.
• Data de Publicação: 2012
• Outros Autores: BUSCHINELLI, C. C. A., FONTES, L. P., VIEIRA, H. B., CASTRO, C., LEITE, R. M. V. B. C.
• Idioma: eng
• Título da fonte: Repositório Institucional da EMBRAPA (Repository Open Access to Scientific Information from EMBRAPA - Alice)
• Texto Completo: http://www.alice.cnptia.embrapa.br/alice/handle/doc/921135
• topic: Girassol; Biocombustível; Helianthus Annuus; Biofuels

The increase in global demand for renewable energy has encouraged, both directly and indirectly, the production of oilseeds, including sunflower, as feedstocks for biodiesel. In this scenario, Brazil stands out for its excellent agronomic and climatic conditions for growing these crops throughout its territory. However, there is still little information about the sustainability of the biodiesel production chain, depending on the source of raw materials and inputs, the rural context and the region where it is produced. Faced with these questions, this study aimed at evaluating the social and environmental impacts, both along the production chain of biodiesel obtained from sunflower, and at the rural establishment level, in the reference context of southern Minas Gerais state, Southeast Brazil. The methodology involved application of two impact assessment tools: a) the “Base System for Eco-certification of rural activities' (Eco-cert.Rural)” comprised of 24 criteria and 125 indicators for performance evaluation at the value-chain level (gathering 19 experts with knowledge of different links in the biodiesel chain within the studied area) and b) "System of Environmental Impact Assessment of Rural Activities" (APOIA-NovoRural), comprised of 62 sustainability indicators applied to the rural establishment scale (through a detailed field survey / interview involving a reference sunflower producer). The study was conducted in November 2009 and information from the interviews were inserted directly into the weighting matrices of the systems, automatically expressing the results in graphs for partial and final environmental impact index of the activity, that for the system APOIA-NovoRural varies between 0 and 1 (as the limit of sustainability, taking the value 0.7). According to the experts, the results of the insertion of sunflower for biodiesel production (in no-till system, following corn crop) promoted positive social and environmental impacts. The highlights were the criteria for producer training, income generation, food security and institutional relations. In the ecological dimension, not all indicators were favorable, mainly due to increased demand for inputs and sources of energy, while others had positive performance such as soil quality, biodiversity and environmental recovery. So to give this result in a rural area, the study APOIA-NovoRural system showed, in general results/trends similar to those obtained for the chain, with some significant discrepancies. Benefits were observed for management aspects (0.80, in a 0-1 utility scale) and economic values (0.82), which increased income and investment capacity on the farm. Still, social values changed little with the activity (0.71), which contradicts the opinion of chain experts. In terms of environmental performance indicators, the inclusion of sunflower has provided positive impacts on water quality (0.92), atmosphere (0.85) and for the production system, the experts disagreeing only for soil quality, which presented unsatisfactory result (0.68), denoting low fertility. This result was a point of alert for the farmer, who received recommendations for soil fertility correction before starting a new sunflower crop. This oilseed requires good nutrition and does not tolerate low pH. The experts who evaluated the biodiesel chain did not identify this. Thus, at the scale of the rural establishment, the insertion of an additional culture (late season) without a good management and technical support should impact negatively the soil quality, even though other environmental and economic positive aspects were observed. It is possible to conclude that the insertion of sunflower, stimulated by the biodiesel program, showed positive impacts for rural establishment, with a final performance index of 0.77. However, some aspects such as social benefits were not fully noted. This result points to the need of public actions for the effective implementation of the government guidelines in the Brazilian Program for Biodiesel Production and Use, which has social values as one of the pillars of sustainability. This kind of study subsidizes the elaboration of regional public policies that promote the sustainable development of the biodiesel production chain generated by sunflower oilseed.