Regiões e especialização na agricultura cafeeira: São Paulo no início do século XX

Abstract

This article deals with agricultural specialization in regions and farms of the state of São Paulo in the early twentieth century, after several decades of changes caused by the coffee boom. We use data from more than forty thousand farms to examine the agrarian structure and specialization in eleven regions which cover the whole state of São Paulo at the time. The article also shows how farms chose between export (coffee) and internal market crops. The results lend support to part of the literature but add new evidence which diverges from established notions among historians. In the early twentieth century, all regions of São Paulo cultivated coffee, but nearly all of them specialized in more than one agricultural product, except the Mogiana region. Besides the plantations highlighted by the literature, small farms were also drawn into export production and specialized in coffee. In turn, large properties not only specialized (apart from coffee) in food crops, but dominated the supply of the main products for internal markets.