Deforestation, Coffee Cultivation, and Land Degradation ... - lumes

3.3 Agricultural History of BrazilBrazil gained its independence from Portuguese colonial rule in September 1822, marking atime of great change for the country including significant agricultural and economictransitions. The colonial economy had been dominated by sugarcane and the slave labor usedfor its production. For the first 10 years following independence, sugarcane continued to beBrazil’s leading commercial crop, constituting 30 percent of all exports (Burns 1980).However, foreign competition soon deprived Brazil of its once prosperous sugarcane market.Europe began producing sugar beets, virtually eliminating the need for imports, and the moreefficient production of sugarcane in the Caribbean and elsewhere ousted Brazil from the racefor foreign capital. During this time the prices for sugarcane fell by 11 percent, and could notcontinue to support the Brazilian export market (Burns 1980, Dean 1995).A large share of government revenues were made from the tariffs and import duties ofinternational trade, thus the newly independent government of Brazil was eager to find anexport crop suitable to replace sugarcane. Great Britain was Brazil’s largest trading partner,and not surprisingly the first attempts to find a replacement for sugarcane were made throughthe cultivation of tea. Chinese laborers were even brought over from Asia to teach Brazilianfarmers the secrets of tea production. However, the crop failed to gain the interest of theBritish market, as it was presumed to be of low quality and more expensive than Chinese tea.Without the British, tea had little hope of succeeding the prosperous sugarcane market (Dean1995).Coffee had originally entered Brazil in 1727 from French Guiana (It may have reached Brazilas early as the 1600’s but was of no importance commercially at this time.), and by 1770 hadspread through northern Brazil to the Southeastern states of Rio de Janeiro and Minas Gerais.It was discovered that coffee thrived in these mountainous areas, as the temperature, heavyrainfall, and a distinctive dry season, provided nearly optimum conditions for its growth(Burns 1980, Dean 1995). In addition to favorable climate conditions, the slave trade allowedBrazilian coffee plantations to flourish. In the early 1700’s slave rebellions in coffeeproducingnations of the Caribbean increased world coffee prices, providing a boost to thenewly established coffee industry in Brazil. With the Portuguese traders providing adequateslave labor from Africa to man the labor-intensive plantations, coffee became Brazil’s largestagricultural export (Wolf 1982).By the middle of the nineteenth century coffee production was booming in Brazil, and theproblem of replacing sugarcane appeared to be solved. However, at the same time coffeespread through Brazil, it had also penetrated many countries of Latin America and theCaribbean. Brazil was spared from a competition crisis due to the fact that it far out producedall other coffee growing countries, supplying three-quarters of the world’s coffee by the endof the nineteenth century (ibid.). In addition to out-producing other nations, Brazil was ableto corner the United States coffee market. While the rest of Latin America and the Caribbeanconcentrated on selling high quality coffees to European consumers, Brazil was able toprovide for the less discriminating tastes of the growing U.S. market (Burns 1980, Dean1995). Brazil remains tied to the U.S. market to the present day.Coffee was the catalyst for the rapid growth of the Brazilian economy, and exports of thecrop continued to rise annually. By 1860 Brazil was exporting more than it imported, and by1890 coffee exports represented nearly 65 percent of Brazil’s total export market. At thesame time, the United States replaced Great Britain as Brazil’s major trading partner. As the13