Prospects of the sugarcane expansion in Brazil: impacts on direct and indirect land use changes.

Sugarcane has been an important crop since the initial colonization period of Brazil and is nowadays expanding considerably its cultivated area, particularly due to strong ethanol demand. Ethanol demand has been increasing in the internal market since 2003 due to the expansion of the !ex-fuel car !eet and is also facing good perspectives in the international market. From 2000 to 2007 the cultivated sugarcane area increased by about 3 million ha, reaching about 7.9 million ha based on information from IBGE (2008a). "e South-Central region was responsible for 95.7% of this total growth.