Brazilian agribusiness plays an important role in the country's development, in terms of generating jobs, income and foreign currency. And within agribusiness, sugar cane has been and continues to be a promising product in this development. With this in mind, the general aim of this study is to analyse the influence of the sugarcane agro-industry on the socio-economic development of the municipality of Caarapó. To this end, quantitative research was used, with a descriptive and explanatory approach. It focused on sugar cane production in the period between 2000 and 2012, using secondary data obtained from the Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics (IBGE) and the Federation of Industries of the State of Rio de Janeiro (FIRJAN), among others. The sugarcane agro-industry has brought population growth, an increase in the number of jobs and income, resulting in personal improvements. However, it was not possible to say that the improvements were exclusive to this endeavour.