São Paulo State harvested 15,392,000 bags; Rio de Janeiro State offered 4,245,000 bags; Espirito Santo and Bahia together had another half million. Altogether Brazil had over 20,000,000 bags of coffee for sale, to a world whose annual consumption was then not much more than 17,000,000 bags; and in addition to the new Brazilian crop there was a harvest from Mexico and Central America of 1,500,000 bags, from Colombia of 1,000,000, with another half million from the East and 400,000 from the West Indies—and the not to be ignored contribution of real Mocha coffee of 115,000 bags. Nor was that all. There had been a big Brazilian crop in 1901–02, reaching the then unprecedented figure of 15,000,000 sacks, and with a world consumption at that time of only 13,000,000 there was a large surplus of this coffee left in hand, as well as stocks of other varieties. Prices went down, and the planter was only saved by the imminence of a fall in exchange which meant that although his coffee sold for less gold than normally, yet this gold brought so much more Brazilian paper when exchanged that he was able to pay operating expenses and still count a profit in national currency. From a gloomy level of thirty francs a bag, coffee rose in 1904–05 to about forty and fifty francs; but the threatening feature of the situation was retention in world warehouses of a stock averaging 11,000,000 bags. When Brazil was confronted with 20,000,000 bags of the new 1906 crop she thus had to consider a market which already held seven-tenths of the coffee needed annually by the world, apart from other sources of new supply. To throw her coffee upon Europe and the United States meant the ruin of the premier industry of Brazil. After a series of hotly debated discussions, which had begun with the menace of the big crop of 1902, the State of São Paulo, with the support of the Federal Government and in agreement with the States of Rio and Minas, decided upon the famous, greatly abused and passionately defended Valorization Plan. The methods adopted may be open to criticism, but some remedy had to be sought, and the plan had the merit of boldness as well as the sanction given by success; the fact that this success was partly adventitious would probably prevent recourse to like measures at future times. The “Taubaté Agreement” forming the base of the plan obliged the contracting states to sell their coffee at not less than a given price,[11] to prevent exportation of grades below Type Seven; to commence propaganda work abroad to increase coffee sales; to collect a surtax of three francs per bag on all exports; and to limit new planting of coffee. It was farther suggested that the surtax proceeds should be held by the Federal Government and used for the amortization of the loan to be made, creating a Caixa de Emissão e Conversão to deal with financial aspects of the Plan and to regulate exchange—an excellent measure which was eventually carried out.