Rubber in Brazil: Dominance and Collapse, 1876-1945

Abstract

For the first few years of this century, Brazil was the major supplier of rubber to the world. However, the Amazonian wild rubber industry was unable to compete, in either price or quality, with the Asian plantation rubber that began to appear on world markets after 1906. Development of a successful plantation culture in the Amazon seemed imperative, but even with public subsidy, plantations remained an economic impossibility. By 1945 the Brazilian rubber industry, overwhelmed by Asian production, had virtually disappeared.

Population Pressure and Land Use Change: From Tree Crops to Sawah in Northwestern Kalimantan, Indonesia

“…The first plantation was established in 1898. When the demand for rubber ballooned, there was an established nursery at the Botanic Garden in Singapore which met the demand for seeds in Malaya, and to a lesser extent seeds were also available from the Bontanic Garden at Bogor (Buitenzorg) on Java to supply plantations and smallholders in the Dutch East Indies (Purseglove, 1974, Resor, 1977.…”

“Rubber will not keep in this country”: Failed development in Benin, 1897–1921

“…In 1872, Henry Wickham succeeded in smuggling 70,000 rubber seeds out of Brazil with the help of the British consul; these went via Kew to Ceylon, and on to the rest of Southeast Asia. Asian rubber was first exported from Ceylon in 1898, where it had been planted on land cleared for coffee before blight struck that crop (Resor, 1977). Beginning in 1910, rubber exports began to take off in Asia.…”

“…In the Amazon, it has been frequently argued that the region fell behind Asia because plantation rubber was not established. Resor (1977) suggests that plantations were uneconomical in Brazil because the Para grew better in Asia. Dependency theorists attribute the failure of Brazilian plantations to surplus extracted abroad from the wild rubber industry, while Marxists point to social relationships as constraints, and Warren Dean theorized that endemic leaf blight was the principle obstacle .…”

“…In none of these scenarios could colonial officials or concessionary companies establish institutions that created effective incentives to extract rubber at a sustainable rate, or restrict tapping to methods that did not injure the trees. Resor (1977) suggests several weaknesses of the Brazilian wild rubber industry, including high levies, the loss of prime territory to Bolivia, poor port and transport infrastructure that was expensive to build and maintain, and overall high costs of collection. Clearly high transportation costs apply to Benin, where head porterage remained the norm.…”

“…From 1860 to 1910, the Amazon basin accounted for some 60% of world rubber output (Barham and Coomes, 1994, p. 80). Amazonian production came mostly from wild rubber collected by tappers outfitted by river traders or patrõs who acquired land by "purchase, squatters' rights, or force" and hired matteiros to carve paths through the forest that connected the rubber trees (Resor, 1977). The patrõs in turn received credit from export houses.…”