"Pedro was just seven when he started work on a sugarcane farm with his father after refusing to go to school - little knowing what this small act of rebellion would cost him.

For nearly four decades, Pedro has cut sugarcane under the hot sun in Brazil, one of the world's top producers of ethanol - a key material in the biofuel that powers vehicles worldwide and is seen as a key part of the global switch to cleaner energy.

It is backbreaking work.

Pedro's base pay is less than $7 a day - a monthly wage that falls way below Brazil's statutory minimum of about R$1,045 ($192) - and he said he has seen co-workers collapse and die in the fields from heat and exhaustion.

Every day before going to work, he prays that he will be spared."

Fabio Teixeira and David Sherfinski report for Thomson Reuters Foundation November 16, 2021. [2]