Coffee Labor Regimes and Deforestation on a Brazilian Frontier, 1915–1965

* Research was funded by the Organization of American States (PRA No. F44890); the National Science Foundation (Geography and Regional Science Program, Dissertation Improvement Grant No. SBR-9508433); Sigma Xi, The Scientific Research Society (Grant-in-Aid of Research); and the University of Wisconsin-Madison Graduate School (Foreign Travel Grant). For research logistics I am grateful to Hugo de Souza Dias (Centro de Desenvolvimento do Vale do Paranapanema), Patrícia Barbosa Fazano (Consórcio Intermunicipal do Escritório da Região de Governo de Assis), Marlene Aparecida de Souza Gasque (Centro de Documentação e Apoio à Pesquisa in Assis), and Antônio Manoel dos Santos Oliveira. I also thank W. E. Jepson and four anonymous reviewers for comments on earlier versions of the manuscript.

Abstract

In this paper I analyze the relationship between coffee labor relations and deforestation in São Paulo state, Brazil, using new empirical data from judicial archives and a microeconomic approach stressing transaction costs. Contractual planting, sharecropping, and mixed wage–piece rate schemes encouraged rapid conversion of forest and woodland (Cerradão) to coffee by a wide range of landowners. Factors of labor quality, costly supervision, information asymmetries, and risk shaped the labor relations that speeded the creation of coffee groves. Tensions existed within labor relations schemes regarding usufruct, debt, and the definition of work. The findings suggest that greater attention should be given to the particular nature of labor arrangements in affecting environmental resource use.

• coffee
• labor relations
• deforestation
• Brazil

Notes

* Research was funded by the Organization of American States (PRA No. F44890); the National Science Foundation (Geography and Regional Science Program, Dissertation Improvement Grant No. SBR-9508433); Sigma Xi, The Scientific Research Society (Grant-in-Aid of Research); and the University of Wisconsin-Madison Graduate School (Foreign Travel Grant). For research logistics I am grateful to Hugo de Souza Dias (Centro de Desenvolvimento do Vale do Paranapanema), Patrícia Barbosa Fazano (Consórcio Intermunicipal do Escritório da Região de Governo de Assis), Marlene Aparecida de Souza Gasque (Centro de Documentação e Apoio à Pesquisa in Assis), and Antônio Manoel dos Santos Oliveira. I also thank W. E. Jepson and four anonymous reviewers for comments on earlier versions of the manuscript.