Politics and economics: the Estado Novo, the owners of large estates in the Alentejo, and the antecedents of EPAC

Abstract

There is a frequently defended hypothesis that the Estado Novo (the New State, 1933-1974) supported, and greatly relied on, the owners of large estates (latifundiários) in the Alentejo. In this article, the author endeavours to show that this theory cannot be defended without qualifications. The history of the National Federation of Wheat Producers, and of the Cereals Institute, shows that, at least since the beginning of the Second World War, the Estado Novo's policy on wheat was not obviously favourable to farmers of the Alentejo. The two institutions were initially conceived as trades unions of a kind, for the wheat producers. However, they changed and were converted into state bodies that became increasingly cumbersome and removed from the people they were supposedly representing. Finally, the author suggests that their transformation into a public company (EPAC) after 25 April 1974 was, to a certain extent, anticipated by their evolution during the Estado Novo.