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When farm work disappears: labor and environmental change in the Brazilian sugar-ethanol industry

What factors drive labor substitution in the biofuels sector? Can labor substitution engender positive environmental outcomes, such as decreasing carbon emissions? Using the Brazilian sugar–ethanol industry as a case study, this article examines the motivations and consequences of substituting machine harvesters for cane-cutters and ending field burning. Not only does this article interrogate key claims from techno-optimistic and sociological theories of environmental change on how and why producers adopt new practices, but it also highlights the role of labor in processes of environmental change. Using a multi-sited ethnographic method, I collected data in 3 ethanol-producing states in Brazil, where I interviewed 61 mill managers, variety breeders, consultants, and producer syndicate officials and conducted observations at 9 mills. Two main findings emerge. First, labor challenges with farmworkers, not environmental authority, were the primary motivations for changing production practices. Second, although new practices generated positive environmental effects locally, such gains are likely to vanish at the regional level since an expanding industrial sector, with its new employment opportunities, undergirded and made viable mechanization in the biofuels sector. Overall, this article is an empirical account of how an emerging market economy seeks to balance climate change mitigation with an active development agenda.