Different approaches concerned with economic development have focused their attention on São Paulo state's sugar industry during its recovery and growth in the first half of the 20th century. According to some authors the coffee crisis of 1930 was the main turning point, while others have recently indicated previous structural conditions. To what extent can the new sugarcane varieties be related to those changes of São Paulo's sugar industry? Or, did they represent a simple technical event alien to the society at large? The present paper brings out some new arguments for those questions, placing technology in a social context. Keeping this in view, we direct our analysis to the technological strategies involved in the eradication of sugarcane's mosaic disease during the late twenties.
History of technology; Technological change; Sugar industry
