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BRAZIL'S PRESIDENT FINDS ETHANOL A HARD SELL IN CENTRAL AMERICA.

Article Excerpt
Brazil's President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva visited four Central American nations in a tour of northern Latin America that began in Mexico (see SourceMex, 2007-08-08). It was, for the most part, a "biofuels diplomacy" trip that was played in the media as pitting Lula's ethanol against Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez's oil. By most accounts, oil won.

Brazil is heavily invested in ethanol, and Lula has promoted the stuff as the future great source of the planet's energy and of the region's well-being (see NotiSur, 2007-04-27). "We have the opportunity to democratize access to new sources of energy, multiplying job and income creation and diversifying the energy matrix, bearing in mind the needs of our farmers and guaranteeing food production for all," Lula said just prior to leaving home for a swing through Mexico, Honduras, Nicaragua, Jamaica, and Panama.

Lula met the greatest resistance to his message in Nicaragua, where President Daniel Ortega conditioned the expansion of ethanol production on not "jeopardizing the environment or encouraging monoculture." Ortega came down hard on ethanol made from corn, calling it "a crime and an attack on the rights to food of the Latin American and Caribbean peoples."

Ortega has said he sees Lula's ethanol policy as too close to...