The Bancos de Custeio Rural and the agricultural credit in São Paulo (1906-1914)

Author(s)

Fábio Rogério Cassimiro Corrêa

• Document type: Master's Dissertation
• Press: São Paulo.
• Institution: Universidade de São Paulo (USP). Faculdade de Filosofia, Letras e Ciências Humanas (FFLCH/SBD)
• Defense date: 2014-09-16

Examining board members

Marisa Midore Deaecto; Renato Leite Marcondes; Lincoln Ferreira Secco

• Advisor: Marisa Midore Deaecto

Abstract

The financing system of coffee has evolved in the transition from slave to free labor process as credit for the cost of the annual harvest was imposed in relation to long-term loans required by the slave system. On the other hand, the crisis in coffee prices that occurred between 1896 and 1906 would demonstrate the limitations of the funding system, based on advances provided by merchants. The new credit requirements and the growing sense of discontent with commercial financing mechanisms would eventually raise proposals for state intervention through an agricultural credit policy to be organized by the state government of São Paulo and that was to be carried on the mat the coffee valorization program adopted in 1906. Such interventions include the establishment of agricultural banks and encouraging rural credit cooperatives of which the so-called Costing rural banks are the first experiments of this type in the state and constitute our object of study. The \"Bancos de Custeio Rural\" consisted of a network of credit unions that operated between 1906 and 1914 in the state of São Paulo. During this period, these banks lent, to associated farmers only, the necessary amount to fund their annual crop. Having arisen in the context of the coffee crisis of 1896-1906, their reconstitution reveals the intense debate regarding ways to tackle the crisis and the role of the state in agricultural finance. The BCRs emerged as an alternative to government intervention in the credit system and represented the first experience with the credit cooperativism in the state of São Paulo. In 1914, they were present in forty-nine cities of that state. However, despite its rapid growth, they disappeared as soon as the company that have organized them went bankrupt, in January of that same year. In this article, we discuss the circumstances of its emergence, organization, operations and bankruptcy (AU)

• FAPESP's process: 11/16209-0 - The Bancos de Custeio Rural and the agricultural credit in São Paulo (1906-1914)
• Grantee: Fábio Rogério Cassimiro Correa
• Support Opportunities: Scholarships in Brazil - Master