Introduction

This essay has the objective of presenting environmental policy options to guarantee the sustainability of the Sugar Agroindustry (SAI) in the state of Puebla, stemming from analyzing systematically the set of activities that make up the productive and value chain that begins with the production of sugar cane in the ejidos devoted to its cultivation, the transport and the transformation in sugar plants until obtaining sugar in its different presentations. The concept of sustainability has gone from being one of nearly general acceptance to being placed within a strong debate; we adhere to the aspiration of arriving at super-strong sustainability, which maintains that the environment must be valued economically, but also incorporating the cultural, social and ecological values of original peoples; this should be supported by a new ethics that breaks with the idea of economic growth as the motor of development, and accentuates the quality of life.

The environmental problematic of the SAI is associated to the prevailing patterns of production in the different moments of the productive chain, which requires the use of chemical fertilizers, pesticides, high water consumption in the cultivation fields; the slashing practiced during the sugar harvest, which includes soil erosion and CO₂ emission to the atmosphere (in addition to labor risks); and, in the industrial sphere, the great impact on the water resource, as a result of the use of large amounts in the productive process and the generation of residues that are discharged into superficial water currents, in addition to other emissions of gas and particles into the environment, from the use of fossil fuels.

The analysis of the SAI productive chain allows us to locate the activities of high environmental impact that persist in the agroindustry with production patterns that date from many decades ago, where the creation of value is also present, which does not consider the reparation of environmental damage generated by the producers and also by the entrepreneurs who participate in it.

We suggest that the implementation of sustainable productive processes in the SAI implies the analysis and revision of the chain, in accordance with the current Mexican environmental law. We also reflect upon the environmental policies that point towards its super-strong sustainability.

Fundamental characteristics of environmental policies in México

The environmental authority in México is the Ministry of the Environment and Natural Resources (Secretaría de Medio Ambiente y Recursos Naturales, SEMARNAT), whose function is to address the environmental agenda integrally, in which both the management of renewable natural resources and the care for the environment are included; two decentralized organizations depend on this Ministry, the National Institute of Ecology (Instituto Nacional de Ecología, INE) and the Federal Environmental Public Prosecutor’s Office (Procuraduría Federal de Protección al Ambiente, PROFEPA).

The INE was created within the context of the integration of México to the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) and the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), with the charge of implementing an environmental strategy for the Mexican industry to achieve competitiveness, as well as for the protection of employment and health.

The functions of the INE are ecological planning, environmental regulation, ecological exploitation of natural resources, research and technological development with environmental aims; it assumes regulatory, normative and environmental management tasks which make it a priority entity.

The PROFEPA is assigned the activities of inspection, vigilance in use, protection and exploitation of natural resources and ecological ordering of federal competence, in addition to having the faculties of control and citizen attention, such as monitoring and evaluating the compliance with the applicable regulation and legal dispositions applicable to the prevention and control of environmental pollution and in the sphere of environmental impact and discharges of residual waters to national water bodies; imposing the measures of security and the sanctions that are appropriate, attending emergencies and environmental contingencies, denouncing and legal third-party contribution, as well as taking action before courts because of damages to wild life and its habitat.

Concerning actions by PROFEPA in the environmental sphere, which is one of the objectives of our research, these have two aspects. One, environmental auditing; and the other, normative verification. The first is a program directed at companies which, because of their production processes, as well as because of the sector of activity where they are found, represent risks to the environment. A fundamental characteristic is that companies adopt it voluntarily and of their own accord; there is no obligatory nature.

Environmental auditing has been applied primarily with large private companies, large semi-official ones, and in smaller proportion, companies of smaller size. Through these, the Prosecutor’s Office verifies the degree of compliance with the various laws in the whole of the company’s operations, such as prevention and control of environmental contamination, industrial risk and hygiene, as well as security measures in the industrial facilities. Once the deficiencies are detected, preventive measures are enacted which are monitored by PROFEPA through the signing of the action plan with the company that has been audited. It is important to point out that the great majority of the companies (medium, small, and micro) do not participate in the program of environmental audits. It is necessary to mention that most of the sugar plants participate voluntarily in environmental auditing.

With regard to normative verification, it is exercised through inspection visits that give rise to administrative sanctions or which are enacted through technical measures for the correction of problems detected.

The farthest precedent from the application of what can be called regulation or environmental policy in the economic activity of the SAI is found in the General Law of Ecological Equilibrium and Environmental Protection (Ley General de Equilibrio Ecológico y la Protección al Ambiente, LGEEPA), which is the fundamental instrument of the operation of environmental policy. Its basic aspects with regard to the industry were to establish dispositions for the control of contamination of the atmosphere, soil, water, the control of dangerous materials and residues, the classification of sources of pollution, and the sanctions for those who violated the Law.

In México, the environmental policy directed at the industry stems from the principle of not using direct regulatory actions, and it was instead designed for the companies to reach voluntary self-regulation, which contains a preventive character rather than a corrective one. The use of instruments that the environmental policy has is attempted to be rationalized, following the principle of standardization of the instruments, and therefore the instruments used are few, dismissing in particular the application of ecological taxes. The environmental authority in México strongly promotes the use of instruments of environmental policy that are voluntary, with the aim of promoting self-regulation actions by companies, such as agreements between the industry and the authority, environmental auditing, and the ISO 14001 certification.

Importance of the sugar agroindustry in the Mexican economy and in the region of Puebla

The analysis of the Mexican Sugar Agroindustry is relevant in more than one sense: because it is one of the oldest productive activities in the country, because of its economic importance, producer of a good for the basic basket, because of its interlacing between agriculture and industry, and because of its regional impact, which has allowed it to influence the social scope in quite relevant ways. It is an industry that is representative of the old contract agriculture dominated by the industry, historically associated to the process of land distribution, and because it determines the economic life in wide regions of the country (^{Rappo Miguez, 2002}).

México is found among the first 10 sugar producing and consuming countries; the SAI generates approximately 300 000 jobs directly, in fifteen states of the Republic, with 60 sugar plants grouped in eleven entrepreneurial consortia. This agroindustry presents countless links; it integrates primary, industrial, commercial and service activities, with which there is a multiplying effect of employment that impacts three million people (^{Hernández Barajas, 2000:21}).

However, the SAI also faces historical difficulties, which impede a pattern of sustained growth, which falls into recurring crisis situations of prolonged character.¹ The facets that this crisis adopts are diverse, there can be a discussion about a decapitalization crisis, a technological backwardness crisis, a productivity crisis, a competitiveness crisis in the international arena, a financial crisis, a labor crisis and an environmental one, among others.

The difficulties that the national SAI presents can be synthesized in the following manner:

Concerning the typologies of the sugar cane and agroindustry zones, ^{Arguello (2009: 169-171)} presents some methodologies in this regard.

The most frequently used typology in México compares the field yields, tons of sugar cane/ sugar produced. We find sugar plants with high field yields that coexist with yield units lower than the national mean, which results in a marked productive heterogeneity. Without a doubt it is a fundamental element to consider in the study of the agroindustry. The productive heterogeneity is an element used to explain the problems of international competitiveness, which in turn determine their technical and financial situation, which has an effect on problems of scarce occupation, failure to comply with sugar cane producers, financing problems, and profitability differentials, among others.

It can be deduced that such problematic has an effect on the environmental aspect, which translates into problems of river contamination from materials used by the sugar plants, which has turned the Mexican SAI into one of the activities with greatest negative impact on the environment in the national industry; the absence of industrialization is also observed from many sugar cane byproducts, which end up as industrial waste, as is the case of sugar cane pulp, thrown into the rivers or the atmosphere as ashes and CO₂ when it is used as fuel.

Importance of the Puebla region in the national SAI

Historically the sugar cane region in the state of Puebla, México, has had great economic importance both at the local and the national level, because it is one of the most productive zones of the country, basically the zone that neighbors the state of Morelos that makes up a territory of enormous agroecologic potential, allowing increases in the yields of the sustainable cultivation of sugar cane without damaging the environment.

From data in Table 1 we can see that Puebla contributes 4.2 % of the sugar cane produced for national sugar plants and 4.7 % of the national sugar production, although it only contributes 1.6 % of the surface cultivated and 1.8 % of the surface industrialized, which is why its productivity is one of the highest in the country; its sugar cane and sugar yields per hectare are 160 % and 170 % higher than the national mean.

Table 1 México and Puebla: Sugar Cane Production. (Sugar harvest 2010/2011). 

Source: ^{Unión Nacional de Cañeros, A.C.-CNPR (2013)}.

The heterogeneity factor of Mexican sugar plants, according to ^{Aguilar (2011)}, places Calipam among the sugar plants of medium productivity (it is moderately above the national mean), and Atecingo among the sugar plants of high productivity with yields above the national mean. However, Puebla represents a clear example of the heterogeneity of national sugar plants, since although only two operate (Atecingo and Calipam), these are different, as we can see in Table 2.

Table 2 Comparative between sugar plants in Puebla, México. (Sugar harvest 2010/2011). 

Source: ^{Unión Nacional de Cañeros, A.C.-CNPR (2013)}.

The productivity in both sugar plants is higher than the national mean, and if our reference is sugar cane per hectare and sugar per hectare produced in both sugar plants, Atecingo has a higher yield of almost 80 % to 60 %, respectively, with regard to Calipam in each one of these aspects. The fact that both sugar plants in Puebla have a sugar cane and sugar yield above the national mean is relevant.

Production pattern, productive chain and environmental impact: towards the construction of the ecological footprint of the Puebla SAI region

In a shallow way, the productive chain of the SAI corresponds to two large processes: 1) sugar cane production which, together with water, is the fundamental input in this agroindustry that is located in the primary sector; and 2) the process derived from sugar production in the industrial sector plant.

Sugar cane is a perennial crop, which is exploited in one cycle of plantilla, at least one of soca² and three of resoca. The plantilla cycle implies the preparation of the terrain for its cultivation and supply of abundant water, weeding tasks to optimize the development of the plant and facilitate water penetration; it is necessary to apply manure or fertilizer³ and to combat pests using pesticides. The soca and resoca cycles are carried out after the first sugar harvest, from the stalks that remain in the field and which constitute the basis of the new shoots that will make up the grinding stalks of the following cycle. The trunks and dead leaves are eliminated to avoid the development of damaging insects or else to grind them and integrate them into the soil simultaneously with adequate insecticides and fertilizers; the fertilization is done with a dose of manure and fertilizer similar to that for plantillas (^{Servín, 2003}).

The sugar harvest is carried out by producers after the supervision done by the sugar plant, which controls the technological package of the agricultural production, as well as the supply periods; in México burning or grazing the plantation from last year is of generalized use, prior to the sugar cane cutting with the aim of facilitating this task and eliminating weeds, since the sugar plant demands the delivery of sugar cane without leaves or tips, ready to be ground. The sugar harvest or sugar cane collection is done by hand, although tests were made with several machines and some success was achieved. The main reason of this practice is that the owner has to absorb the costs of sugar harvesting, and it is more economical for producers to pay very low salaries to cutting quadrilles. In addition, there are small-scale producers who are financially burdened, and with increasingly less capacity for hiring financing, in a country that closed down the development bank, and where the prevailing interest rates become restrictive for any economic activity. Another factor that limits field work is migration in the sugar cane producing regions, which make hiring of workforce difficult.

It is sought for cut sugar cane not to remain in the field for more than 24 hours, so it does not lose weight and industrial quality, it must reach the sugar plant fresh; the burning and the cutting of sugar cane begin a process of degradation that decreases the sucrose content.

This study does not attempt to determine the ecological footprint of the sugar agroindustry in the region of Puebla in a quantitative manner, just as its methodology determines; instead, and given our limited resources, it was suggested to move forward in its search, with the results that we present from the ecological footprint analysis in the sugar cane region of Puebla; it cannot be affirmed that the approach is finished, given the complexity of evaluating it quantitatively.

The search for the ecological footprint⁴ begins in the phase of sugar cane cultivation, which demands a large amount of nutrients: without agroecologic practices, soil depletion begins, given the monopsonic character of the sugar cane crop in our country, given the condition of the sugar plant as productive center, which is supplied by the cane fields. The demands that are characteristic of the use implicate a strong deterioration of the soils, especially because of their characteristic of the monocrop throughout the years.

Table 3 Water consumption in the sugar elaboration process. 

Source: authors’ elaboration.

In addition, the technological pattern associated to the varieties and the use of fertilizers and pesticides, which are highly pollutant, generate negative effects on the cycle of substances due to compacting and salinization of the soil, drainage, devastation among microorganisms. This situation is provoked by the high extraction of nutrients on the one part, and by their low incorporation, on the other: to face this situation it is recommended to use compost derived from mash and pulp (mash and pulp are residues from the sugar plant’s productive process).

The use of this type of fertilizers should be encouraged since they act as soil improvers (sugar mash is rich in nutrients), they increase production, and their wide and permanent use can be constituted as a generator of jobs (^{Servín, 2003})

Sugar cane production involves the availability of water or the existence of moist soils (Table 4). There are problems with water management, in the hydraulic infrastructure, in the irrigation interval and layers. Drip irrigation projects have been implemented, which have not advanced due to lack of resources of their own and because of the lack of financing. Some sources point out that pests and diseases provoke damages of 10 %.⁵

Table 4 Main sources of residual water in sugar elaboration. 

Source: authors’ elaboration.

In general terms, as an activity prior to the cut, the crop’s burning is performed⁶, and with this the tip (bud) and the leaf are eliminated. The parts of the sugar cane that are eliminated with the slash are of a high nutrient content, particularly the tip or bud that is used as fodder. Until today, the use of agricultural residues from the harvest is very low and they are used scarcely, with burning being preferred in the sugar cane harvest, since the use of sugar cane residues with the aim of diversification is not generalized, since it depends on certain factors, among which the absence of economic stimulation stands out, which is reflected in the lack of processing and purchasing companies, the technological culture, and there is not a productive chain or market for residues from the sugar cane agroindustry that allows increasing its performance although there are potential byproducts, based on their composition.

Burning also implies a series of environmental problems like air pollution, increasing the indexes of gas emissions to the atmosphere that provoke the greenhouse effect, also affecting the soil and the health of those who live near these places, as well as that of sugar cane cutters.

Likewise, the ash and the smoke generated affect the animals, at the same time that they contaminate rivers and lakes near the burn.

With regard to the transport of cut sugar cane to the sugar plant, according to data by ^{Palacios (2011)}, the costs of transport are borne by the sugar cane producers and not the sugar plants, which imply a load on the production costs, and therefore a loss of efficiency. The Mexican sugar plants are neither owners nor co-owners of the trucks, and do not show any interest in modernizing and making transport more efficient. The transport of sugar cane to the sugar plant implies a large environmental load given the obsolescence of the trucks that transport it, generating a higher consumption of fuel and lubricants with the resulting emissions of fuels and CO₂ to the atmosphere.

Vehicles are used which are an average of 31.2 years old. The average number of daily trips that each truck makes is quite small: 0.8 and optimistically 2; these figures show that the transporter from Mexican sugar cane zones is forced, in face of the obsolescence of the technology in the sugar plant, to carry out a very small number of trips, since the patios in the factory are insufficient to receive the sugar cane from the trucks in waiting, which is reflected in a reduced income for them. This fact is caused by the so-called dead or waiting times for the transporter to be able to unload the sugar cane. These can be 3 to 10 hours.

The large number of trucks parked in the outbuildings at all times represent a monetary loss for the owners of the trucks, who cannot make other trips and, therefore, their earnings are less and they cannot direct funds to preventive maintenance of their vehicles.

^{Palacios (2011)} adds that the fleet for each sugar plant is excessive, since the trucks are used by sugar plants for temporary storage, which has an impact on the loss of the sugar cane freshness and, therefore, on lower productivity because of sucrose losses. This fact affects the income of sugar cane producers and transporters, originated from the difficulties in storage, management and work processes in the sugar plants. The reduction in waiting time in the outbuildings would allow a uniform regularization of the arrival of trucks to the sugar plant, without highs and lows throughout the workday. This would entail a greater commitment from the sugar plants: speeding up the procedures and the registry of the sugar cane they receive, improving the administrative processes that have an effect on the productivity and, therefore, on the income of producers and transporters. The sugar plants should invest in facilities to make more agile the stockpiling of the sugar cane delivered, to improve the technical processes and to interfere in reducing the waiting times. This would also have an effect, as has been shown, on environmental improvement.

Environmental policies in the sugar agroindustry

Due to the characteristics of the environmental policy, the instruments for environmental regulation used by sugar plants are environmental audits, which have been performed voluntarily. These were carried out at the initiative of the companies, accepting that PROFEPA would review their productive processes and get to know the conditions of pollution and risk with which they operate, as well as the facilities; this, in order to determine from these the degree of compliance with environmental regulations, international standards, and good operation practices and applicable engineering, and to the joint elaboration by sugar plants and PROFEPA where preventive and corrective measures could be set out (Action Plan), to protect the environment. However, the results from the environmental audits are not public.

It should be pointed out that most of the country’s sugar plants have accepted for voluntary environmental audits to be performed. Some authors like ^{Argüello (2009)} point out that this has been to the benefit of the environment, since these have forced some companies to make some changes in their industrial facilities, and they also state that there are other ways of certifying the environmental quality of the sugar plants, such as ISO 14000, which some sugar plants have achieved.

^{Argüello (2009)} describes a second instrument for environmental regulation in articles 28 and 29 of the LGEEPA, where several industries are located, and in particular the Sugar Industry as a subject of environmental impact evaluation from the Federal government through the Ministry destined to the care of the environment (SEMARNAT). For the environmental authority, the environmental impact evaluation is the process directed at establishing the conditions that performing works or activities should be subject to, which may cause ecological imbalance or exceed the limits to protect the environment and preserve and restore the ecosystems, and which are applied in order to reduce to the minimum their negative effects on the environment.

A third reference in environmental regulation of the SAI is found in the Mexican Official Ecological Norms (Normas Oficiales Mexicanas Ecológicas, NOM-ECOL), which are directed more explicitly towards the achievement of specific environmental objectives, so that in these the following ranges of pollutants are established, which the productive activity cannot exceed. Table 5 presents the NOM-ECOL that apply to activities derived from the Mexican SAI.

Table 5 Mexican Official Norms. 

Source: http://www.semarnat.gob.mx/leyesynormas/Pages/normasoficialesmexicanasviges.aspx.

To ^{Arguello (2009)}, the environmental policy in the sugar cane-sugar production sector achieved at their start some advances, since environmental problems were identified and some companies were sanctioned, which changed their systems and productive methods.

From the perspective of regulations, the Mexican environmental authority has the following set of tools:

The Program for the compliance of NOM-001- SEMARNAT-1996: since 2000, it has taken on the task of performing verification visits to users that are obliged to comply with the NOM, where samples of the discharges are taken and analyzed in laboratories accredited by the Mexican Accreditation Entity (Entidad Mexicana de Acreditación, EMA) (Table 6) (^{Garduño, 2003}).

Table 6 NOM-001-SEMARNAT-1996. Gradual compliance calendar. 

DBO: Biochemical Oxygen Demand. Source: ^{Garduño (2003}).

During the period of 2000-2001, 226 industrial, commercial and service users were visited, and it was detected that of the 168 users detected because they did not comply with the NOM, 54 corresponded to sugar plants (Figure 1). If we take into account a universe slightly larger than 60, we can observe that close to 90 % of the Mexican sugar plants did not comply with the NOM, so it is constituted as one of the economic activities that contaminates national rivers and water deposits most. The recent situation according to ^{Morales Trujillo (2011)} can be summarized as:

Source: ^{Garduño (2003)}.

Figure 1 Users per type of industry that did not comply with NOM-001-SEMARNAT-1996 in 2000. 

“The use of water in a Sugar Plant is synonym of contamination, since few sugar plants treat their water, they only store it and later deposit it into rivers nearby, provoking large amounts of pollution for the flora, fauna and living beings near the Sugar Plant”.

“This high contamination leads us to think and decide about the changes or practices necessary to mitigate or eliminate water pollution, which are a great challenge yet not impossible since day by day the techniques and machineries needed to achieve this are generated and updated”.

The ordering of water management in a sugar plant must have the objective of reducing amount of contaminated water that needs to be dumped or treated to the least possible, and its contents should comply with the Official Norms (NOM). Of the measures to be taken inside the company, water recuperation should occupy the first place.

The discharge of residual waters can be reduced to a minimum by optimizing the design of the internal water circuits and by applying depuration methods of proven efficacy by installing water treating plants and a laboratory for residual water analysis. The latter is urgent in some sugar plants that still do not have these facilities, for treatment plants to be constantly monitored by the respective environmental authority, as well as making the residual water quality control systems efficient and performing the necessary works for the separation of the factory and rain drainage systems.

Elena ^{Gonzalo (2007)} points out that it is necessary to take steps to rationalize water use in the SAI, starting from the water’s classification, according to its quality, storage, managing to modify the process by substituting the operations carried out through the wet path for others through the dry path, modifying the machinery or else renovating the technology; this much should be done with discharge waters. All of this implies an additional cost that owners and administrators of the sugar plants must consciously assume.

Environmental productive situation in the Puebla region

Table 7 compares two sugar plants located in the state of Puebla, from the information available. It can be observed that the sugar plant in Atencingo has behaved recently as an economy of scale, which has allowed it the reduction of unitary costs, the expansion of its installed capacity, and consequently a relative modernization of its machinery, which is expected to generate a lower environmental impact; at least there has been an advance in areas such as a growing mechanizing of the harvest, less time lost in the factory, a substantial reduction in the consumption of petroleum in the factory, and less consumption of electrical energy.

Table 7 Environmental indicators from sugar plants in Puebla, México. (Sugar harvest 2011/2012). 

Source: ^{Unión Nacional de Cañeros, A.C.-CNPR (2013)}.

Table 7 allows us to locate the presence of productive processes that mark differences, derived from different realities for productivity and economic solvency in both sugar plants.

Calipam faces serious financial problems that have not allowed it to afford the settlements to sugar producers and for that reason many of them have taken their sugar cane to other sugar plants, located at a greater distance, with the resulting loss of a good part of their income; this has worsened the productive situation of the sugar cane region where this sugar plant is located, despite having the competitive advantage of having produced sugar from organic sugar cane; this project, which could be encouraging, has been abandoned because of lack of solvency of the sugar plant.

Links can be found between the financial problematic - productive with the environmental, since according to a study, this sugar plant has not modernized its equipment and the region already has serious problems of water supply, so that meetings between sugar cane producers and sugar plant authorities have taken place in order to share and rationalize its use.

A quite different situation prevails in Atencingo, which is experiencing a moment of investment and modernization; according to SAGARPA:

“a technology of variety improvement, pest combat and adequate use of water has recently been applied, as well as a coordinated strategy between producers to carry out the sugar harvest, in 2010-2011… through the incorporation of technology, improved varieties, drip irrigation systems… managers of the sugar plant informed that they have implemented a Strategic Plan for the 2015-2016 sugar harvest, which will allow them to obtain a production of 1.7 million tons of sugar cane, higher than the current one of around 1.5 million… an efficient use of water is performed through the incorporation of technified irrigation systems and management practices, such as works for overlay or tubing of canals, multi-lock-gates, alternate furrow, aspersion and central pivot, and drip irrigation… In addition, works for directed fertilization, which covers the performance of soil analysis and the implementation of recommendations for application of chemical and organic fertilizers at the plot level. With these actions, there are steps being taken in the sector towards agriculture of precision and sustainability, they highlighted. Another factor is the improvement of the soil fertility through production of compost, worm compost, and the incorporation of harvest residues to increase the organic matter content, which allows conserving moisture and improving the structure of the fertile ground” (SAGARPA, 2013).

Conclusions