Balbo, 45, is not only the agricultural director of Sao Francisco but also commercial director for the Native line of organic products. Besides packaged sugar, which is turning up in more coffee shops in Brazil, Native also sells coffee, powdered chocolate, fruit juices and other products. Launched in 2000, Native started turning a profit in 2005, Balbo said.
The skeptics had underestimated not only the market for organic sugar but also the Balbo family's willingness to take risks, and pride in a history of innovation.
The Balbos helped design a new harvester that spreads the leaves and other waste from the cane, providing cover to protect the soil and control weeds. Waste from the distilling of sugar into ethanol is turned into a potent fertilizer.
Pests are controlled in a number of ways, including by raising tens of thousands of tiny wasps that infect a type of caterpillar that can destroy sugar cane. The wasps are hatched in the bug building at the plantation, nurtured until they can fly and then released by the cupful into the fields.
Beneficial critters, such as earthworms, are protected, partly by using tilling and harvesting methods that do not compact the soil.
Sao Francisco also has returned some of its acreage to woodland.
Not only has that brought back wildlife not seen in the region for decades, but it also has helped combat erosion.
Balbo said, "You have to give nature an opportunity to participate in the stewardship of the soil.... We treat the farms as a living organism, while most conventional farmers treat their farms as being sick."
*
McMahon reported from Brazil and Martin from Washington.
