July 3
Brasilia, Brazil - Brazilian authorities said they raided an Amazon plantation where more than 1,000 laborers were found working 13-hour days, in horrendous conditions, cutting sugar cane for ethanol production.

Under the practice, poor laborers are lured to remote spots where they rack up debts to plantation owners charging exorbitant prices for everything from food to transportation.

Police found 1,108 poor workers working from 4:30 a.m. until 5:30 p.m. with only a short break for lunch. They complained of paying exorbitant prices for food and medicine, and many walked miles to get to work while others were transported in ramshackle vans.

Many were sick from spoiled food or unsafe water, slept in cramped quarters on hammocks and did not have proper sanitation facilities.

The company, Para Pastoril e Agricola SA, has been in operation since 1969 and each year produces 13.2 million gallons of ethanol.

The company has 1,800 employees. Sugar cane cutters receive 700 to 800 reals ($368 to $421) a month, far above the nation's minimum wage of 380 reals ($200). In the Amazon region, many workers make less than the minimum.

Brazil is a huge user of ethanol because eight out of every 10 new cars sold are "flex-fuel" models that run on gasoline, ethanol or any combination of the two. Ethanol currently sells for about half the price of gasoline in Brazil.

But the country is under heavy pressure to improve working conditions for the cutters who harvest much of the sugar cane.

The Roman Catholic Church's Land Pastoral group, which helps rural workers in Brazil, estimates that some 25,000 workers currently live in slavery-like conditions in the nation, most of them in the Amazon.
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