Resumo:

The perspective of a significant increase on ethanol demand as a renewable biofuel energy source requires, without doubt, an increment of the raw material production in quality and quantity in a sustainable way. To supply this demand, specialists have foreseeing the need for expansion of the cultivated area of sugarcane from the current 7.3 million hectares in 2008/09, to 14 million hectares in 2030. This expansion will require major changes in the whole productive system. Therefore agricultural production technology for sugarcane should be improved with focus not only on productivity, but mainly in the reduction of environmental impacts. Considering the current bottlenecks of the agricultural production and the goals to be reached, along 2007 and 2008 several workshops1 were held to discuss with the technical and scientific community the expectations in terms of RAndamp;DAndamp;I to build a new model of sugarcane production from the agricultural point of view. This new model is presented and discussed in this part of the book.