The IBGE releases today (12/05/2016) the first volume of the series Territorial Dynamics of Agricultural Production, with the topic 'The geography of coffee'. The publication covers the moves of this agricultural activity in the Brazilian rural area throughout four decades (1970 to 2010). Besides, it identifies the vectors of social mobility of coffee growing, which are the natural conditions (e.g. climate events), socioeconomic (e.g. super production period and high prices) and public policies (e.g.  the actions of renewal of the coffee farming activity).

The series Territorial Dynamics of Agricultural Production aims at monitoring the spatial dislocation and contemporary geography of the national crops. The focus is to systematize, in a same cartographic basis, a set of information that can contribute to the main segments comprised in the Brazilian rural space in contemporary times. The selected products to compose this series are those that, throughout time, have reached a significant place in the structuring of the Brazilian rural area.

The work A geografia do café (The geography of coffee), besides its pdf format, is also available in a geographic analysis application, which incorporates, in a interactive environment, all the information covered in the project. The application allows either navigation to access just texts and maps for download or navigation for those in search of online geographic information.

Click here to access the complete publication and here to use the application.

Publication shows coffee crops head to MG and ES

The book The geography of coffee highlights the territorial dynamic dimension seen in the crops which moved form São Paulo and Paraná towards Minas Gerais and Espírito Santo, spreading out in specialized areas in Bahia, Goiás and Rondônia, while keeping the production already established in areas like Rio de Janeiro, Paraná and São Paulo. The leadership of Minas Gerais and Espírito Santo in the current geography of coffee was established in the end of the 1990s.

The publication also identifies the vectors of spatial mobility of coffee growing in Brazil. Among them are the frosts which stroke the coffee crops in São Paulo and Paraná, especially in 1975. The periods of high production and prices, during which coffee growers would establish new expansion areas, are equally pointed out as responsible for the spatial dynamics of the coffee cultures. Other factors are the growth of the urban market associated with the urbanization process of the country, particularly in the state of São Paulo.

Among the deep changes in the productive process of coffee crops are the introduction of technology, new varieties of species and agronomic practices. Spatial dislocation, resulting from the change in the coffee growing regions, is one of the most significant traits that persisted during the evolution of the coffee growing activity through time.

Territorial dynamics of coffee relates to storage capacity and production outflow

Coupled with the territorial dynamics of coffee, there is a geography of points, where the production is concentrated in warehouses and processed in roasters, a geography of flows, traced among the municipalities which produce, store and process coffee and the ports which redirect this production to the market.

The concentration of the stocks of coffee beans in the South/Southeast Geographic Mesoregion, with a highlight to Guaxupé and Varginha, reached in 2013, more than 105 thousand tonnes, which grants theses municipalities and singular position in the national context.

A second area of highlight in the geography of storage of coffee beans in the national level is located around the Triângulo Mineiro and surroundings of Anápolis, in Goiás, and of the Federal Capital, where there is a great concentration of the trading points and set of high-capacity facilities of grain storage.