Pre-War Average Annual Production of Coffee by Countries
Fiscal years: 1910–1914
Total pounds: 2,311,917,200
The chief feature of the twentieth century's developments has been the passing by the United States of the half-way mark in world consumption; this country, since the second year of the World War, having taken more than all the rest of the world put together. The world's chief coffee "stream," so to speak, is now from Santos and Rio de Janeiro to New York, other lesser streams being from these ports to Havre, Antwerp, Amsterdam, and (in normal times) Hamburg; and from Java to Amsterdam and Rotterdam. It is said that a movement, fostered by Belgium and Brazil, is under way to have Antwerp succeed Hamburg as a coffee port.
The rise of Brazil to the place of all-important source of the world's coffee was entirely a nineteenth century development. When the coffee tree found its true home in southern Brazil in 1770, it began at once to spread widely over the area of excellent soil; but there was little exportation for thirty or forty years. By the middle of the nineteenth century Brazil was contributing twice as much to the world's commerce as her nearest competitor, the Dutch East Indies, exports in 1852–53 being 2,353,563 bags from Brazil and 1,190,543 bags from the Dutch East Indies. The world's total that year was 4,567,000 bags, so that Brazilian coffee represented about one-half of the total. This proportion was roughly maintained during the latter half of the nineteenth century, but has gradually increased since then to its present three-fourths.
Pre-War Average Annual Imports of Coffee into the United States by Continents
Fiscal years: 1910–1914
Total pounds: 899,339,327
The most important single event in the history of Brazilian production was the carrying out of the valorization scheme, by which the State of São Paulo, in 1906 and 1907, purchased 8,474,623 bags of coffee, and stored it in Santos, in New York, and in certain European ports, in order to stabilize the price in the face of very heavy production. At the same time, a law was passed limiting the exports to 10,000,000 bags per year. This law has since been repealed. The story of valorization is told more fully in chapter XXXI. The coffee thus purchased by the state was placed in the hands of an international committee, which fed it into the world's markets at the rate of several hundred thousand bags a year. Good prices were realized for all coffee sold; and the plan was successful, not only financially, but in the achievement of its main object, the prevention of the ruin of planters through overproduction.