Brazil in the worldwide market Sugarcane: a development option Brazil is the largest worldwide sugar exporter and together with Australia and certain Central and South American countries, is one of the few countries to export more than the domestic consumption. On the other hand, the ethanol market is still highly restrictive and due to high fuel domestic consumption, the bulk of production is still destined to the domestic market. One of Brazil’s advantages is to have two distinct crop periods. The northern-northeast region of the country harvests its crop between the period of November and April, while in the mid-southern region, such activity occurs during May and October. Thus, the country enjoys not only an interesting geographical diversification, but also greater crop balance. The Brazilian agricultural productivity grew over the past years, and currently, is 77 tonnes of cane per hectare. Productivity gains are a result of a set of continued measures and research and technology investments. Mid-southern region producers highly contributed to such measures and obtained better results than its northern-northeast region competitors. Currently, the mid-southern region accounts for approximately 85% of cane, sugar and ethanol production and has been showing a robust growth over the last crops.