February 4, 2019
Today, we had our last tour of the long trip. We toured a sugarcane processing facility called Raizem, who owns the Shell corporation here in Brazil. In the morning, our hosts took the time to explain everything we need to know about sugarcane. We learned about how sugarcane is planted, how it grows, growing practices used to create more sugar, and how the sugarcane is harvested and processed.
After our morning presentations, we took a break for lunch before going on a tour of Raizem’s facilities. We got to see all of the trucks that bring sugarcane into the plant, as well as harvesters. The facility has three main functions: producing sugar, producing ethanol for energy production, and sending the byproduct ethanol to distilleries to create sugarcane liquor. After a short tour of the facilities, we took our tour bus to the sugarcane fields owned by Raizem.
In the fields, we got to see what we learned about sugarcane that morning. We saw some of the plant growth stages in different fields that were planted at different times, as well as seeing some different varieties that Raizem was experimenting with for better production. We even got to see some common pests of sugarcane that we had discussed earlier that morning!
After spending some time in the fields, we headed back to the conference room, where we returned our safety equipment, said goodbye to our hosts, and made the long journey back to Piracicaba. Upon our return, a group of us went out to our favorite burger place right next to Antonio’s. After dinner, we said goodbye to our regular waiter there, and went back to the hotel to rest up before working on projects tomorrow.
In the field looking at the sugar cane plants!
Thank you for a great day learning about sugar cane!
-Shem Pond