During almost all the history of Minas Gerais State, its sugarcane production always presented as complementary to other major economy activities, both inside the state and in other Central-Southern regions in Brazil. From the nineties onwards, the sugarcane activity presented a significant economic importance for the state, with the occupation of the savanna of Minas Gerais and attracting investments. This state began to have a prominence occupation in the ethanol and sugar production in Brazil. Specifically in Minas Gerais State cities, many aspects can attract the installation of mills and distilleries, with economic, social and environmental advantages and disadvantages. This paper verifies the evolution of the sugarcane agroindustry in Minas Gerais and the elements which have encouraged the location of mills and distilleries in some counties. With a multivariate logistic regression analysis, it was found that the yield, the access to water resources, the land concentration, leased agriculture properties, the availability of formal workforce and the higher income of this workforce are aspects that have determined the presence of mills and distilleries in Minas Gerais cities, which can result in beneficial or harmful effects that should be verified in future studies.