Ranching in the Campanha of Rio Grande do Sul, Brazil, 1850-1920: An historical geography of uneven development

In southern South America, a long-established ranching region, the lateral extension of the Industrial Revolution was an uneven process. This study clarifies why technical refinement in ranching (in breeds, fences and refrigeration for example) came later to the grasslands of Rio Grande do Sul than to Argentina and Uruguay. The newly-found relative political stability of mid-nineteenth century is taken as an opening benchmark, in order to provide a detailed analysis of the traditional, highly-extensive gaucho ranching economy. Rio Grande do Sul's abrupt entry into the frozen meat industry around 1920 is used as the affirmation of the Campanha's modernity. The remainder of the work traces how the Campanha was drawn increasingly into the North Atlantic economic system. After approximately 1870, a modern technology allowing for more intensive ranch management started to be adopted, beginning around the Plate estuary and diffusing outwards from there. The broad patterns of diffusion of key ranching innovations are traced for the Campanha, which trailed decades behind the River Plate countries. Beginning in the late 1880s, railways, tariffs and the abolition of slavery laid the groundwork for a slow but sustained transformation of Campanha ranching, one accomplished while the regional economy was still based mainly on hides and salt-beef. This transformation was slowed by many factors. Unlike the River Plate countries, the developmental stimuli posed for ranch management by sheep and cultivation played very limited roles in the Campanha. National political support for reforming property management rights (rural legal codes) was weak, as were linkages between domestic elites and foreign merchants. Rio Grande do Sul's provision of infrastructure and attraction of foreign capital also remained limited in comparison with the Plate. The pace of change in the Campanha quickened with World War One's extraordinary food demands. Structural weaknesses that endured in the Campanha of 1920 (in transport, credit and the limited influence that ranchers held over national policy formation) were the legacy of uneven development.