The capitol Brasília

THE PHOTO ON THE LEFT IS IN SAO PAULO OF THE HOMELESS. Note if you click on any photos on the blog then they should expand to full screen.


Brasilia which is the capitol of Brazil is planned out much like Canberra. It is basically a governance city with around 2million residents.
We started the day lost in a bus with a driver that could not speak English and so after about 45 minutes of driving around Brasilia we arrived at the offices of an organization that represents agriculture in Brazil from an industry point of view.
We then moved on to “Embrapas” who are the CSIRO of Brazil. We had talks with people there as well as well as looking at a process for producing diesel from plant oils that is different to how Bio diesel is produced.
After Lunch we moved on to the Brazilian parliament where we met advisers to the government on agriculture.
Our meeting was held in a room where all Brazils agricultural policies are thrashed out.
We spent three solid hours discussing economic and environmental issues along with great discussions on the future of the “Amazon”.
One interesting number was that the average ethanol yield per ha from sugarcane is approx 7400litres per hectare. The Energy output from sugarcane to ethanol is approximately 1 to 9 and for wheat it is only about 1 to 2.2 so we were told.
In Brazil approximately 50% of sugarcane is used for sugar and the other is used to produce ethanol.
After the discussions we were then allowed to have an after hours look at the parliament chambers in action. It was around 6.30pm and there was still debate going on in both houses. We were given great access to a parliament that is governing approximately 180million people which was a great privilege.