Cl\u00e1udia Abreu*<\/STRONG> S\u00e3o Paulo \u2013 Two years ago student Eric Ricardo da Costa, 33 years of age, left the city of Jaguari\u00fana, 120 kilometres away from the southeastern Brazilian state of S\u00e3o Paulo, and moved to Fl\u00f3rida Paulista, also in the state, 600 kilometres away from the capital. He went after work in the sugar and alcohol industry, which at the time was taking definite steps in the direction of structured growth, now a reality. In the month of April, the sugar and alcohol industry alone opened 42,000 work positions, answering to 82% of the total generated by the transformation industry in the state of S\u00e3o Paulo, show figures supplied by the Federation of Industries of the State of S\u00e3o Paulo (Fiesp).<\/P> According to Francisco Lupo, a professor at Paula Souza Centre, which runs 130 state-owned technical schools in the state of S\u00e3o Paulo, the heating up of the labour market in the sector is due, mainly, to two factors: expansion and modernization of old mills and the opening of new units in the state. According to figures supplied by the S\u00e3o Paulo Sugar Cane Agro-Industry Union (Unica), 76 mills installed in S\u00e3o Paulo are now operating. Up to the end of the crop, it is estimated that 158 mills will be in operation \u2013 ten more than in 2006. "To supply the global demand for ethanol, the industries have expanded, improved their processes and renewed machinery. To work with this new reality professionals must prepare themselves,\u201d he finished off.<\/P> Eric Ricardo da Costa is one of them. With two completed technical courses \u2013 Electronics and Mechatronics \u2013; he has enrolled in the third, "Technician in Sugar and Alcohol" at the Eud\u00e9cio Luiz Vicente Technical School, as he believes that the career, like the sector, has a prosperous future. Training in the electronics area contributed to make the student into a specialist in automation of mills, one of the main aspects in modern sugar and alcohol mills and, for this reason, greatly disputed in the labour market, mainly in the western region of the state of S\u00e3o Paulo. "In the Fl\u00f3rida Paulista region alone (where the company in which Costa is working, Floralco, is located), in a radius of 300 kilometres, there are eight mills in operation. Up to 2010, there will be another seven," explained Costa, pleased with the possibilities that are arising.<\/P> In the last term of the technical course, in 2005, Costa started working for Floralco, in charge of automation. With the growth of the industry \u2013 which expects to process 2.2 million tonnes of sugarcane this year \u2013, the student was soon promoted. In less than two years, he was assisting the manager of the entire production line in the mill. "I develop programs for company management. The furnaces, for example, which used to be controlled by 10 men, are now monitored by just one person, sitting in front of a computer," explained Costa. Remuneration is also accompanying the market. Costa explains that he earns around R$ 2,000 (US$ 1,020) a month, a value considered very good for the region.<\/P> Another career that is in the wake of the growth of the sugar and alcohol sector is chemistry, or better, alcohol-chemistry. The training is the same as that taken by Costa, "they are chemistry technicians specialized in sugar and alcohol". The Paula Souza Centre, for example, trains around 80 professionals a year. "And, currently, they all leave the school employed," stated Francisco Lupo. Over two years the students learn to control and supervise technological processes for the production of sugar, alcohol and by products of the industry. "They are also prepared to deal with the quality of all phases of the productive process and to implement national and international norms that must be followed by the sector," explained Lupo. One of the strong points of the course \u2013 which guarantees employment \u2013 is the compulsory internship for students in the last term of the course. After the internship, according to Lupo, most of them are hired.<\/P> Apart from sugar and alcohol mills, alcohol-chemists have started working in the development of new products based on cane. One of the examples is PHB Industrial, the result of a partnership between groups Irm\u00e3os Biagi and Grupo Balbo. Since 1995, the company has been producing biodegradable plastic from the fermentation of sugarcane. According to Eduardo Brondi, the company director, the plastic may be used to make packages, medication capsules, etc. The greatest advantage is disposal. "When disposed of in nature, it is biologically active, and, with bacteria and fungi, is absorbed and once again made into carbon-dioxide and water," he stated.<\/P> The sugarcane plastic was developed through a partnership between the company and professionals in the chemical area at the University of S\u00e3o Paulo (USP) and the S\u00e3o Paulo state Institute for Technological Research (IPT). For the production of a kilogram of plastic the use of three kilograms of sugar is necessary. Another important point, apart from production from a renewable raw material and biodegradability, is that the plastic is made in a clean manner. The energy for the process, for example, is obtained from the fibre contained in the sugarcane bagasse. The part that does not become energy or bio plastic is also used: it goes to crops, as an input.<\/P> The new product, according to the specialist, opens space for various professionals, from those working at the factory, in the production of plastic, to those at the end of the line, developing, discovering applications \u2013 in industry, fashion, design \u2013 for sugarcane plastic.<\/P> Post-graduate<\/STRONG><\/P> The boom of ethanol has also been moving universities, and some have even created post-graduate courses in the sector. At the College of Agriculture (Esalq), there are currently three kinds of courses in the sugar and alcohol sector: "Investment and management of agro industry", "Specialization in agricultural management" and "Specialization in industrial management". The courses last 18 months and cost approximately 650 Brazilian reais (US$ 330) per month. According to Daniel Sonoda, from Esalq, three classes have already graduated in the course in the agricultural area, three in the industrial course and one in the investment course. "The demand for the courses has been growing significantly. One example is the agro-industrial management course, we opened 40 positions and had 80 inscriptions, we decided to open a second group in the second term," he explained.<\/P> According to Sonoda, the profile of the students is varied, but a change has been noticed in recent years. "Before it was veterans in the sector who sought this kind of learning, but now it is the professionals who recently started in the sector who are interested in it," he explains.<\/P> To supply the demand for knowledge in the sector, other courses should arise this year, according to Tiago Quintella Giuliani, Agroenergy coordinator at the Ministry of Agriculture, Livestock and Supply. According to Giuliani, the government should sign an agreement with Esalq and other universities to create more courses in the area of sugar and alcohol and also in the field of agro-energy. The date has not yet been defined, but it may be this year.<\/P> *Translated by Mark Ament<\/STRONG><\/P><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" With the growth of the demand for fuels, new work opportunities are arising in the sugar and alcohol sector. At the end of the month of April, industries in the area generated 42,000 new work positions. To supply the demand, technical and post-graduate courses in the area are arising in the market. The salaries of those who are trained in the sector are attractive.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2308,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[102],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-24198","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-agribusiness"},"wps_subtitle":"With the growth of the demand for fuels, new work opportunities are arising in the sugar and alcohol sector. At the end of the month of April, industries in the area generated 42,000 new work positions. To supply the demand, technical and post-graduate courses in the area are arising in the market. The salaries of those who are trained in the sector are attractive.","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/anba.com.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24198","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/anba.com.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/anba.com.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/anba.com.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2308"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/anba.com.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=24198"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/anba.com.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24198\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/anba.com.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=24198"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/anba.com.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=24198"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/anba.com.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=24198"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
claudia.marques@anba.com.br<\/P>