Brazilian agriculture emerged from the disruptions of a wartime economy confronting competing pressures. Political tensions arose from urban classes suffering from rising food prices, a trend that continued despite war’s end. Meanwhile, producers chafed against the ineffectiveness of Brazil’s agricultural bureaucracy. The nation’s business leaders promoted a liberal definition of the path forward at a May 1945 conference of over 900 delegates from 680 industrial, commercial and agricultural entities of the self-denominated “productive classes.”