Firmly defending its biofuel policy, the Brazilian government told the Ethanol Summit 2009 in Sao Paulo this wek that the production of biofuels does not increase food prices.

''Ethanol cannot be the scapegoat for the failure of international organisations, because the production and use of ethanol were not and will not be responsible for the prices of agricultural primary materials,'' presidential chief of staff Dilma Rousseff said at the inauguration of one of the world's largest gatherings of the international biofuels industry.

Rousseff emphasised that biofuels have made it possible for Brazil to derive 46 per cent of its energy from renewable sources, compared with a global average of 12 per cent. Brazil has a fleet of more than seven million flex-fuel automobiles, which allow the burning of sugar-based ethanol, gasoline or a mixture of the two, and even regular gas has to contain 25 per cent ethanol.

''Ethanol is our priority, since it offers great economic possibilities in the creation of jobs and in the fight against climate change,'' President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva's top aide said. She recalled that 30 years ago, when the production of ethanol was begun on a large scale in Brazil, the country produced 3,000 litres per year per hectare from sugar cane, a figure that currently has been hiked to 7,500 litres per hectare.

''In these 30 years, with the use of ethanol, we've stopped the emission of 850 million tons of carbon-containing gas,'' she said.

With regard to the criticism about slave labour on the sugar cane plantations, Rousseff said that in ''the coming days'' the government will announce a labour protocol signed by businessmen and workers that will benefit 500,000 peasants.

Good biofuels, bad biofuels
The summit was kicked off in part by former US president Bill Clinton, who noted that Brazil is known for producing the most energy-efficient and cost-competitive ethanol in the world using sugarcane. The downside, though, said Clinton, is that the country's increase in ethanol production is a precursor to the continued destruction of the rainforests.

The issue of rainforest destruction, which many experts say is not a primary result of increased biofuels production, segues into the debate of "good biofuels versus bad biofuels".

A bad biofuel may be one that uses food crops, excessive land and too much water. A better biofuel uses biomass, or waste, little water and little to no land.

The second world ethanol congress will discuss the challenges of the fuel amid the severe global recession. For three days, dozens of representatives of governments, the private sector and technical experts in the field will discuss the challenges and potential of ethanol as a renewable and clean energy source.

Lula sent a videotaped message to the congress in which he defended the world production of ethanol and invited other countries to take responsibility for diminishing the effects of greenhouse gas emissions by using biofuels. The Inter-American Development Bank confirmed its determination to help Latin American countries put in place regulatory frameworks in the area of biofuels, while Brazilian state development bank BNDES said that it increased its line of credit for the sector.