CEO of Grupo BBF defends palm oil production potential in the Amazon region

Milton Steagall reinforced the importance of the raw material for the generation of biofuels and renewable energy.

São Paulo, June 29, 2023 - The CEO of Grupo BBF (Brasil BioFuels), Milton Steagall, defended the potential of palm oil production in the Amazon region to generate mainly biofuels and renewable electricity. He took part on Thursday (29) in the 22nd LIDE Business Forum, held in Rio de Janeiro.

The businessman stressed the importance of generating jobs and income for the population of the Amazon region, where his company is based, and how oil palm can transform the social reality of the local population.

"We have 31 million hectares in the Amazon region deforested by December 2007 and available for oil palm cultivation. This means generating jobs and income. We need to give dignity to the Amazonians, people who need jobs," he said during his participation in the panel "The new reality of Brazilian agribusiness.

The generation of jobs and income in the Amazon region was also a point raised on the panel by the governor of the state of Acre, Gladson Cameli. "When we talk about the Northern region, we talk a lot about our forests. But we also need to remember the 30 million Amazonians, people who live in the region and need to work," he said.

The 22nd LIDE Business Forum brings together the country's largest companies and public authorities until tomorrow (30) in the capital of Rio de Janeiro for a national agenda of debate on socio-economic development, management, public policies and sustainability.

Oil palm follows the strictest legislation in the world

Oil palm cultivation follows one of the strictest pieces of legislation in the world, the Agro-Environmental Zoning of Oil Palm, approved in 2010. According to decree no. 7172 of the Federal Government, the crop can only be grown in areas degraded by deforestation until December 2007. Today, 31 million hectares are in this situation in the Amazon region, in areas identified after a robust study carried out by the Brazilian Agricultural Research Corporation (Embrapa). However, only 200,000 hectares are actually used in the country for this purpose.

"When I went to the then Minister of Agriculture's office in 2008 to ask for the zoning of oil palm in Brazil, he told me that this crop was insignificant in the country. I replied that we could be leaders if the state supported it. We managed to get the palm's agri-environmental zoning approved in 2010. Today, agriculture in Brazil occupies 72 million hectares. We have 31 million hectares deforested and available for oil palm cultivation. This shows its enormous potential and means income generation," he said.

Because of its characteristics, oil palm cultivation cannot be mechanized, which results in a large amount of employment. In addition, Grupo BBF, according to Steagall, in order to circumvent issues related to infrastructure and logistics, uses domestic consumption of palm oil to generate biofuel as a solution, replacing fossil diesel from the thermoelectric plants that already exist within the isolated energy system in the Amazon.

According to him, this generates even more jobs. To give you an idea, today more than 140,000 families are supplied with energy generated from palm oil by BBF in isolated areas of the Amazon.

"Today we have more than 7,000 employees in the five northern states where we operate. We are the company that employs the most people in Roraima, for example," said Steagall. Another 18,000 indirect jobs are generated by the company, which plans to double the number of employees in two years.

The panel "The new reality of Brazilian agribusiness" featured Ronaldo Caiado, governor of Goiás; Mauro Mendes, governor of Mato Grosso; Eduardo Riedel, governor of Mato Grosso do Sul; Gladson Cameli, governor of Acre; Ingo Ploger, vice-president of the Brazilian Agribusiness Association (Abag); Antonio Carrere, president of John Deere Latin America; Mario Mantovani, director of the National Association of Municipalities and the Environment (ANAMMA); and Luiz Lourenço, chairman of the board of COCAMAR. The panel was also moderated by the journalist and president of LIDE Conteúdo, Carlos José Marques; and the president of LIDE Agronegócios, Francisco Matturro.

About Grupo BBF

Grupo BBF (Brasil BioFuels), a Brazilian company founded in 2008, is the largest palm oil producer in Latin America, with a cultivated area of over 75,000 hectares and a production capacity of around 200,000 tons of oil per year. The company is a pioneer in creating sustainable solutions for generating renewable energy in isolated systems, with thermoelectric plants powered by biofuels produced in the region. Its agricultural activity recovers areas that were degraded until 2007 in the Amazon, following the Agroecological Zoning of Oil Palm (ZAE), approved by Decree 7.172 of the Federal Government, of May 7, 2010.

Grupo BBF has created an integrated business model in which it operates from the beginning to the end of the value chain - from sustainable oil palm cultivation, crude oil extraction, biofuel production, biotechnology and renewable energy generation - with assets totaling around R$2.2 billion and activities generating more than 6,000 direct jobs in the northern region of Brazil. Grupo BBF 's operations are located in the states of Acre, Amazonas, Rondônia, Roraima and Pará, comprising 38 thermoelectric plants (25 in operation and 13 under implementation), 3 palm oil crushing units, a soybean extruder and a biodiesel industry.

The company is expanding its supply of biofuels and has signed partnerships for the production of Sustainable Aviation Fuel (SAF) and Hydrotreated Vegetable Oil (HVO), also called green diesel. The new sustainable fuels will be produced as of 2026 in the country's first Biorefinery, currently under construction in the Manaus Free Trade Zone.

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Fernanda Domiciano / Vagner Magalhães