São José de Espinharas is a town in the state of

Paraíba Paraíba ( , ; ) is a states of Brazil, state of Brazil. It is located in the Brazilian Northeast, and it is bordered by Rio Grande do Norte to the north, Ceará to the west, Pernambuco to the south and the Atlantic Ocean to the east. Paraíba i ...

, Northeastern

Brazil Brazil, officially the Federative Republic of Brazil, is the largest country in South America. It is the world's List of countries and dependencies by area, fifth-largest country by area and the List of countries and dependencies by population ...

. Located on the banks of the lower Espinharas River, about 30 km to the North of Patos, this small town has its economy based on extensive cattle and goat raising and

subsistence agriculture Subsistence agriculture occurs when farmers grow crops on smallholdings to meet the needs of themselves and their families. Subsistence agriculturalists target farm output for survival and for mostly local requirements. Planting decisions occu ...

. Its relief is somewhat irregular, with large igneous rock outcrops and small mountains and granite inselbergs. The soil is generally poor ("tabuleiros") and covered by the

caatinga Caatinga () is a type of semi-arid tropical vegetation, and an ecoregion characterized by this vegetation in interior northeastern Brazil. The name "Caatinga" comes from the Tupi word '' ka'atinga'', meaning "white forest" or "white vegetat ...

vegetation, interspersed with small valleys ("baixios") with fertile soils that support agricultural activities and are propitious to the building of small and medium-sized dams that store rain-water flowing in temporary creeks. The natural vegetation on the "tabuleiros" is well preserved as of 2005. Once a prosperous region, the lower Espinharas valley had cotton production as its main agricultural activity until about 1980. This culture was however decimated by plagues and by low prices as a result of the introduction of international competition. This caused a massive migration of the population from the rural area ("fazendas") to urban areas - mainly to

Patos Patos is a municipality of the state of Paraíba in the Northeast Region of Brazil. It is classified by the Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics as a sub-regional center A. It is located in the Espinharas River valley, surrounded b ...

, São Jose de Espinharas itself and

São Paulo São Paulo (; ; Portuguese for 'Paul the Apostle, Saint Paul') is the capital of the São Paulo (state), state of São Paulo, as well as the List of cities in Brazil by population, most populous city in Brazil, the List of largest cities in the ...

. Competition with more favorable areas like

Maranhão Maranhão () is a States of Brazil, state in Brazil. Located in the country's Northeast Region, Brazil, Northeast Region, it has a population of about 7 million and an area of and it is divided into 217 municipalities. Clockwise from north, it ...

and

Goiás Goiás () is a Brazilian States of Brazil, state located in the Central-West Region, Brazil, Central-West region. Goiás borders the Federal District (Brazil), Federal District and the states of (from north clockwise) Tocantins, Bahia, Minas Ge ...

, not subject to draughts, further lowered the value of the cattle assets. Further reduction in the size of the "fazendas", mostly caused by inheritance transmission, and a series of rainless years in the 1980s and 1990s contributed to the economic decline of São Jose de Espinharas - just like it did for most of the "Sertão" - the peculiar hinterlands of Northeastern Brazil. Points of interest: casa velha (old house) of Miguel Sátyro, Serra do Tronco, Fazenda Arara, Fazenda Maria Paz, Fazenda Suécia, Fazenda Tronco, Fazenda Flores.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Sao Jose De Espinharas Municipalities in Paraíba