The Idea of Doce Amargo is to photographically explore the Northwest of the State of São Paulo, which concentrates the largest production of sugarcane in the country, and analyze the social and environmental impact of the excessive cultivation of this crop in the region. The main focus here is to record the change in the traditional cutting cane that, from 2014, should be fully mechanized and document the constant cultural changes that influence the people and the place. To get a better idea of this ever changing cultural landscape, this same place has also served the largest producers of cotton, coffee and cattle in Brazil.
The production of cane sugar significantly helped the Brazilian Gross Domestic Product. Sugar and ethanol appear as economic and environmental solution, but there is also the other side of the story: the production has to be mechanized in order to fulfill the new environmental standards, causing the loss of over 200,000 jobs in the field. With the end of manual cutting, there will be a change not only in the harvest, but also on the number and profile of rural workers, creating an even greater need migration to major centers.