The article analyses the development of the coffee export business of the British company Edward Johnston & Co. in the years 1840-1880. Established in 1842 in the city of Rio de Janeiro, the firm's senior partner was the English merchant Edward Johnston. The departure of partners and the crisis of 1847 made Edward Johnston reorganise the firm in Brazil. In the 1850s, the company established itself as a family business based in Liverpool and then in London in the 1860s. The expansion of the coffee market in the United States made Edward Johnston create a network of firms which consolidated the company as a major exporter of Brazilian coffee by the late 1870s.

This article discusses the available sources of information on the value and volume of Peru’s exports and estimates the current value of exports, the index of export prices and the quantum of exports using a wide variety of sources. By relying on several sources, I estimate the first complete series of the current value of exports for Peru for 1830-1930. Importantly, I adjust other studies’ estimates by taking into account the deficiencies of foreign sources and by distinguishing between exports of specie and of minerals. The estimations show that exports experienced substantial growth in the 1850s and 1860s, during the Guano Era. Exports stagnated in the 1870s and dropped during the War of the Pacific (1879-1883) before recovering in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, especially during World War I.

This essay aims to introduce an issue of the RHE-JILAEH dedicated to the reconstruction of historical trade statistics of Latin American countries. It comments on the early perceptions of the quality and utility of historical trade statistics and on the way in which more recent analyses have overcome the distrust that prevailed until the last third of the 20th century. It then summarises the different criteria and methodologies that have been used to assess the accuracy and reliability of trade statistics in order to make them useful for the purpose of reconstructing new, more complete and precise trade series or re-estimating those available. The introduction ends with a brief description of the contents of this volume.

This article presents, for the first time, a continuous series of value of Honduran exports and imports for the period 1880-1930, extending the series previously available from Notten (2012). The new series were constructed based on the official statistics of the main trading partners of Honduras (United States, Great Britain, Germany and France) corrected from Honduran and complementary sources. The correction criteria applied are based on the results of a previous reliability validation exercise. The data obtained allow to delimit a new chronology of the foreign trade of Honduras where the “export age” began before the banana export boom that took place between 1903 and 1930.

In 1821 Mexico achieved its independence from Spain. What happened in the following 50 years has become a field of dispute for economic historians. The lack of reliable quantitative information in many fields of economic activity has led to contrasting interpretations, none of which has been accepted as definitive. The aim of this paper is to reconstruct the yearly values of Mexico’s foreign trade in that period, with the purpose of providing elements to start filling this significant gap in Mexico’s historiography. It relies on official trade statistics and consular reports from Mexico’s main trading partners. It provides new series of imports and (commodity and specie) exports, and a provisional view of the balance of trade for most of the 1821-1870 period.

Historiography has payed less attention to imports than exports from the last quarter of the nineteenth century to the beginning of World War I. On the one hand, this is explained by the crucial and more visible part that exports played in fostering economic growth. On the other, the reason why imports have been less studied is the high level of disaggregation of the data available. In this paper, we analyse the official Argentine statistics as the main source for a reconstruction of imports. Then, we recalculate the balance of trade using our corrected export series. Additionally, we propose a research agenda based on gaps in the specialised literature and the possibilities given by the use of the official statistics.

To date, research on the economic history of Brazil during the 19th century has relied on official foreign trade statistics, the accuracy of which has repeatedly been put into question. This paper provides insights into the accuracy of the official series by examining the accuracy of the export and import series for Brazil during the 19th century. We re-estimate the official import series using trading partner sources, and find that the official series was marginally under-valued during certain periods of the 19th century. Furthermore, we provide new upper- and lower-bound estimates of the export series by testing different assumptions regarding the size of the cost, insurance and freight to free on board factor adjustments. Finally, we introduce a new import price index for the period 1827-1913.

In order to understand Uruguay’s long-run economic evolution it becomes crucial to interpret its export performance during the First Globalization. The lack of accuracy of official figures, especially official prices used, calls for an adjustment of Uruguayan export series. We have used empirical evidence to test the accuracy of quantities and values of export records, first, according to import partners’ records and, second, according to international market prices. Results show a general undervaluation of official export values during the period along with severe distortions in the registers caused by transit trade. We reconstructed new Uruguayan export f.o.b values and an export price index which present a more unstable and less dynamic export evolution than that of neighbouring Argentina.

Introduction. Losses in West African commercialmango orchards due to fruit fly infestations have exceeded 50% bythe middle of the crop season since 2005, resulting in considerableincome loss for the growers. Materials and methods.In 2009, weekly monitoring of adult fruit fly species of economicsignificance was carried out in eight West African countries at12 sites across five agro-ecological zones: (i) Humid Forest, (ii)Guinean savanna, (iii) Southern Sudan, (iv) Northern Sudan, and (v)Sahelian. Trapping was performed using methyl eugenol and terpinylacetate in 288 Tephri-traps, targeting Bactrocera invadens and Ceratitis cosyra. Results. The datashowed that B. invadens was present throughoutthe year in the Forest zone, abundant for 7 months, with a peakin May at the end of the mango season, C. cosyra beingtotally absent. In the Guinean savanna zone, B. invadens wasabundant for 6-7 months, with a peak at the beginning of June coincidingwith the season, with a few C. cosyra. In the SouthernSudan zone, B. invadens was abundant for 6 months, witha peak in mid-June during the season, C. cosyra peakingin April. In the Northern Sudan zone, B. invadens wasabundant for 5 months, with a peak at the end of June at the endof the season, C. cosyra peaking in May. In theSahelian zone, B. invadens was abundant for 4 months,peaking in August during the season, C. cosyra peakingjust before. These preliminary results showed that the exotic species, B. invadens, was present at high levels [mean peakof 378 flies per trap per day (FTD)] in all agro-ecological zones, whilethe native species, C. cosyra, preferred the drierzones of West Africa, with lower population levels (mean peak of 77 FTD). Conclusion. Detection trapping of male flies with parapheromonesis a useful indicator of field population levels and could be usedto deploy control measures (IPM package) in a timely manner whenthe Economic Injury Level is reached. Control strategies for thesequarantine mango fruit fly species are discussed with respect toagro-ecological zones and the phenological stages of the mango tree.

Lychee on the European markets.With approximately 2.8 Mt of annual global production, lychee constitutesa minor fruit in terms of production. The world production is mainlylocated in the northern hemisphere (95%). However, most of the quantityexported to the EU comes from the southern hemisphere. In this context,with its 100,000 t of annual production, Madagascar is ranked fourthin the producing world and first in the southern hemisphere producingcountries. This rank is due to the fact that supplies in the EUare seasonal and mainly concentrated during the end of the yearholiday season. This market can only be supplied in quantity bythe Malagasy lychee because of its earlier date of harvest in theIndian Ocean. The lychee industry in Madagascar. Lycheecultivation in Madagascar dates from the early twentieth century.It is primarily grown in wet tropical lowlands of the island withsome production in areas with a subtropical climate with dry andcool winters. The stand is not structured into orchards. Therefore,the volumes currently exported are based on a stand establishedby a multitude of small producers. The characteristics of Malagasylychee export and the consequences of the production context onexport are analyzed. Changes in European legislation on lycheeimportation. The regulatory changes since 1987 and the commercial developmentssince 1994 are reviewed by analyzing the resulting effects on theMalagasy lychee exports. Learning experience from fifteenyears of Malagasy lychee export campaigns. Data on Malagasylychee export campaigns from 1996 to 2012 and the history of the changesin volumes exported allow a close analysis of the factors affectingthe Malagasy lychee industry. Success factors of the Malagasylychee exports. These factors are related to securing marketposition and to the components of a marketing campaign (supply dateto the European market, exported volumes and competition from producefrom other countries). Conclusions. Lychees from Madagascar, althoughmarketed for a very brief period, currently occupy the first rank onthe European markets and have managed, through the development of transportlogistics using very large-capacity cargoes, to eliminate all competition.However, this sector is mainly structured downstream and its production,which comprises a network of 30,000 small producers, has been neglected.This lack of intervention (boosting of production, improving crop management,etc.) upstream of the chain does not support sustaining the industryin the medium term.

Introduction. Quarantine heat treatments have not yet beenintroduced in West Africa and no work has been done to determine the treatment conditionsneeded to eliminate eggs and larvae of West African fruit fly populations, especially ofthe new species Bactrocera invadens, from mangoes produced in the region.The objective of our study was to carry out hot water disinfestation experiments onnaturally infested mangoes to determine the exposure parameters required to kill eggs andlarvae of B. invadens present in commercial-quality fruits. The effects of hot watertreatment on fruit quality were also investigated. Materials and methods. Atank with a heating element and a water pump equipped with a tank sensor were used.Physiologically mature, hard, green mango fruits (cv. Kent) with potential export qualitybut infested by B. invadens were harvested from plantations in theBobo-Dioulasso (Burkina Faso) area. The effect of hot water treatment by immersion at42.0 °C, 46.5 °C or 51.0 °C was evaluated by counting identifiable sites of fruit flyoviposition before and after paring the fruit and, finally, the numbers of live and deadlarvae of B. invadens were counted in the pulp. The quality of the fruitwas evaluated after the hot water immersion. Results and discussion. A hotwater treatment resulting in a core temperature of 46.5 °C could be the basis of a fruitfly quarantine treatment for West African mangoes produced in Burkina Faso. All of thelarvae extracted from the fruits treated at 46.5 °C and 51.0 °C were dead, while, in fruittreated at 42.0 °C, only about one-third of the larvae extracted were dead.