The Ox from the Four Corners of the World: The Historic Origins of the Brazilian Beef Industry

Ricardo Ferreira Ribeiro

Agrarian South: Journal of Political Economy, 2012, vol. 1, issue 3, 315-340

Abstract: During the twentieth century, Brazil developed its beef industry, acquiring in the last decade great importance in the international market. This article considers four exotic factors that contributed to its moving from importer of beef to the largest exporter: the raising of cattle of Iberian origin, since the sixteenth century; the Zebu breed brought from India at the end of the nineteenth century; the grass brought from Africa, for the cattle to graze; and barbed wire, invented in the United States, which deepened land concentration in the country. Each factor has distinct geographical origins, but all acted together, like the four ‘legs’ that sustain this immense bovine, to enable its adaptation to Brazilian lands. These four factors, before obtaining success and hegemony, encountered resistance and created controversy, not only for ideological and technical reasons, but also the conflicts of interest that their arrival represented.

Keywords: Brazilian beef industry; cattle farming; Zebu; land concentration; African grass (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2012
References: View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/227797601200100304 (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:sae:agspub:v:1:y:2012:i:3:p:315-340

DOI: 10.1177/227797601200100304

Access Statistics for this article

More articles in Agrarian South: Journal of Political Economy from Centre for Agrarian Research and Education for South
Bibliographic data for series maintained by SAGE Publications ().