The aim of this article is to analyse the dynamics of international trade in cereals, primarily wheat, in the first third of the twentieth century, with a special focus on the causes of the fall in exchanges and prices that took place in the 1930s. Developments over this period are compared with the general trade in food and agricultural products. An examination of the structure of the trade in wheat, maize, and rice shows the operation of their respective markets, giving special attention to the import and export flows between consumers and producers. To understand the functioning of the market for these products, the article examines the changes in supply, demand, and prices, and the emergence and development of intermediary companies in this business. The argument draws from a new database, based on the statistics published by the International Institute of Agriculture.

The objective of this article is to offer empirical evidence regarding the behaviour of the exports and relative prices of agricultural and food products from South America between 1900 and 1950. These were years of intense turbulence, which profoundly affected the countries of the region, generating a deep pessimism concerning the potentiality of the export-led development model. This study offers a new quantitative base to analyse the evolution of exports of agrifood products from South America between 1900 and 1938. The paper also offers a series for the evolution of the terms of trade in the region which takes into account in its construction, for the first time, the relative weights of South American exports of the distinct agricultural products.