Biofuel comes from biomass: biological material that comes from living organisms. In the USA, ethanol is the main biodiesel and in 2008 and 2009, 9.0 and 10.8 billion liters of ethanol were distilled, respectively, representing 6.5 % of the automotive fuel in the country (Wetzstein and Wetzstein 2011). In the USA, biodiesel is funded by the federal government according to a partial tax exemption and several state sub­sidies. These initiatives have generated a rapid growth in terms of ethanol produc­tion (from 0.2 billion liters in 1980 to over 10 billion gallons).

In Brazil, the dominance of biodiesel is due to the production of ethanol and biodiesel, where biodiesel has grown in the last few years, especially due to a gradual increase of diesel used for road transportation, according to governmental norm-related resolutions, such as the one made on January 1st 2010, where the percentage of biodiesel to be added to diesel oil increased to 5 % of the volume consumed in the country, which is approximately 341 million barrels/year and growing, as it is shown on Fig. 1.

We can see on Fig. 1 (right) that the apparent consumption of diesel has grown significantly; in January 1979, there was a daily average consumption of 297 thousand barrels, and in December 2012 we can see an apparent consumption of 1,059 thousand barrels/day—a 256 % increase for this period. Accompanying the consumption of diesel, the production of biodiesel was significantly increased between 2005 and 2012, in this period there was an expressive increase of the national biodiesel production (from 736 to 2,618,624 m3 in 2012, equivalent to 17 million oil barrels). Do note that this increase was due to the introduction of biodiesel in the Brazilian energetic matrix in 2005, where we tried to gradually increase the percentage of biodiesel in the diesel oil used for road transportation (from 2 % in January 13, 2005, to 5 % in January 2010, and an estimated growth for the next years to come).

On Fig. 1 (left), we can see that the apparent consumption of ethanol has also experienced a significant growth. In January 1979, the average daily consumption was at 34 thousand barrels of diesel, and in December 2012, there is a 334 thou­sand barrels/day—a 982 % increase for this period. Please note that this increase was due to the creation of a Brazilian program of incentive to ethanol production and consumption as a source of energy—the Proalcool. The National Alcohol Program

(Proalcool) was created by the decree No. 76.593/75, thus stimulating the production of alcohol for the internal and external markets and the automotive fuels policy.

Considering this continuous increase of the biodiesel consumption, Brazil has 65 industrial plants authorized for construction and 10 are authorized for expan­sion, making up an increase of the daily productive capacity of 4.114 and 748 m3, respectively, while currently the monthly production is of around 60 % of its cur­rent installed capacity (ANP 2012). Figure 2 shows the distribution of biofuels companies in the national territory.

On Fig. 2, we can see the cropped area for sugarcane, where we can see that the plantation concentration is especially high in the central-southern region (where Sao Paulo represents 63 % of the region’s production and 54 % of Brazil’s production), and in the north-northeastern region (especially in the coastal region, which represents around 13 % of the national production of sugarcane). We can see on left

of Picture 2 that there is a higher concentration of industrial plants in the south and central west, which are traditionally known as great soybean producers; this cereal is currently responsible for 80 % of the raw material for producing biodiesel. The main source of raw material for biodiesel is soybean, followed by beef fat, and cotton. Despite being the main raw material used in the process of producing biodiesel, it is not the most efficient, considering the crop area, as shown on Fig. 3.

We can see on Fig. 3 that each hectare of planted soy corresponds to 700 L of bio­diesel, whereas the palm oil corresponds to around 5,100 liters. From this perspective, there is a need of 3.073 million hectares of land destined for soy, in order to respond to the current demand of 17 million barrels/year, representing approximately 12.30 % of the planted area in Brazil: 27.2 million hectares, as mentioned (MA 2012).

Considering the importance of this topic in the agricultural context, we have yet to consider the importance of understanding the concentration level for the bio­diesel industry, as several strengths operate in this system: social demands due to the increase of food cost, economic demands due to the importance that the main raw material (soybeans) has in Brazilian exports, as well as political demands due to the need of decreasing the oil dependency in the country’s energetic matrix.

In this context, we can see that the biofuel demand shall continue to rapidly increase, influenced by the crescent increase of oil cost, and the crescent govern­mental support to cleaner energies. This increase will be induced especially for environmental and energy safety reasons. In the New Policies Scenario that con­siders the public policies commitments and plans announces by the countries, including guaranties of reduction of greenhouse effect gases emission, and plans to ban subsidies for fossil fuels, the world consumption of biofuel will increase approximately from the current 1.1 million barrels/day (63.8 billion liters/year) to 4.4 mb/d (255.3 billion liters/year) in 2035 (MME 2010).

Also according to MME (2010), biofuels will account for around 8 % of the world consumption for transportation in 2035, a significant increase compared to 3 % in 2009. It is estimated that the US and Brazil will continue to be the biggest world producers and consumers of biofuels. The USA will account for 38 % of the world consumption of biofuels in 2035 (a decrease compared to the current 45 %), whereas Brazil will account for 20 % of the world consumption of biofuel in 2035. Given the importance of this topic, and in order to respond to the problem of this research, the following section presents the main methodological aspects used in this work.