Letters to the Editor
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Galeano says monoculture
In "Las Venas Abiertas de Latin America," Eduardo Galeano tells all. Brazil is definitely not the only country to get a start on the left foot because of colonial structures taking absolutely everything out of a country with complete disregard for development.
He makes a strong point to say that sugarcane is a monoculture crop not indiginous to the new world, but has been wreaking havoc on the natural ecosystem for centuries. First through the plantation system, and now who knows what will happen next...
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Sugar versus Ethanol
This is all very persuasive about the effects of big plantations for sugar. Ethanol seems like a different situation however, as a value added product supporting industry in Brazil - including ethanol plants obviously, but also infrastructure such as the new ethanol dedicated pipeline proposed by the main Brazilian petroleum company.
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Hands Off Brazil
If Brazil, in an act of sovereignty, deems it practical to export a significant amount of its ethanol production, then it is their business and their right to do so. The only "colonial" "institutional" thing at work here is outsiders thinking they know what's best for Brazil, like the author of this piece. Back off. Hands Off Brazil!
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Colonialism in Brazil
I find it interesting that if you look around the world at countries that are former colonies, a pattern emerges. The top ten former colonies by GDP are: The United States, India, Brazil, Canada, Mexico, Australia, Argentina, South Africa, Philippines, and Pakistan. Four English colonies, one English/French, one English/Dutch, three Spanish, and one Potugese. Whether it was their intent or not, it's pretty clear that the English were much more successful at producing economically successful former colonies. My hypothesis is that the English imposed a superior "rule of law", allocated property more broadly, and were more interested in two way trade with their colonies than the other colonial powers were.
A solution for Brazil that would be politically difficult, but successful long term, would be a redistribution of land across the poulation and associated legal reform. Concentrated land ownership in Brazil is among the worst in the world.
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Do they still "gotta lotta coffee in Brazil?"
And if so how does this fit into the equation? Back in my school days we were told that Brazil was a major exporter of java. Now, it hardly figures at all in the imported-coffee culture. What happened and why?
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Coffee
Brazil is still the world leader in coffee exports. In the year from April 2006 to March 2007, they exported over 28 million 60-kilo bags of coffee (1.7 million metric tons), or 75% more than the nearest competitor, Vietnam.
Neither of these countries is mentioned much in gourmet coffee export circles because most or all of their output is in Robusta beans. Gourmet coffee is pretty much exclusively Arabica beans, while the Robusta beans tend to go to producing the mass market brands.
As for how it applies to the current topic, the story is largely the same. In their paper, the authors mention that there were many examples of the phenomenon they are describing, but that they chose the sugar and gold cycles as being especially demonstrative of their argument.