This is rampant speculation on my part, but I've put a few facts together and they seem to add up.
Bush has signed an ethanol agreement with Brazil. Bush has encouraged Congress to mandate a fivefold increase in ethanol usage. The Bush ranch in Paraguay, so far as I have been able to learn, is suitable for sugarcane farming.
Here are the pieces of the puzzle:
Bush hails biofuels pact in Brazil
By DEB RIECHMANN, Associated Press Writer 1 hour, 1 minute ago
SAO PAULO, Brazil - At a mega fuel depot for tanker trucks,
President Bush heralded a new ethanol agreement with Brazil Friday as way to boost alternative fuels production across the Americas. Demonstrators upset with Bush's visit here worry that the president and his biofuels buddy, Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, really have visions of an
OPEC-like cartel on ethanol.
But Bush and Silva said increasing alternative fuel use will lead to more jobs, a cleaner environment and greater independence from the whims of the oil market. In Brazil, nearly eight in 10 new cars already run on fuel made from sugar cane.
In January, Bush called on Congress to require the annual use of 35 billion gallons of ethanol and other alternative fuels such as biodiesel by 2017, a fivefold increase over current requirements.
Link
Last week the Paraguayan news group Neike suggested that Ms Bush was in Paraguay to "visit the land acquired by her father - relatively close to the Brazilian Pantanal [wetlands] and the Bolivian gas reserves".
The rumours, as yet unconfirmed but which began with the state-run Cuban news agency Prensa Latina, have triggered an outpouring of conspiracy theories, with speculation rife about what President Bush's supposed interest in the "chaco", a semi-arid lowland in the Paraguay's north, might be.
Link
The Humid Chaco -
Where -
Southeastern South America, in Argentina, Paraguay, and Brazil
Biome -
Tropical and Subtropical Grasslands, Savannas, and Shrublands
Link
Sugarcane
Sugarcane or Sugar cane (Saccharum) is a genus of 6 to 37 species (depending on taxonomic interpretation) of tall grasses (family Poaceae, tribe Andropogoneae), native to warm temperate to tropical regions of the Old World.
Link
I don't know exactly what part of the Chaco the Bush ranch is located in. The Guardian article says "semi-arid," so I could be completely off base, but it's likely they didn't know where the ranch would be when their article was written. The World Wildlife site lists tropical and sub-tropical regions in the Chaco. It would be helpful to have commentary from someone familiar with the region.