In 1966 Ludwig became attracted to ideas of development in the Amazonian Basin. A brutal military dictatorship had toppled the progressive Goulart government in a 1964 coup, with US backing, and US investment was encouraged by the conservative Brazilian generals in power. In 1967, he purchased about 4 million acres (1.6 million ha) of land in Brazil on the north bank of the river in the northeast interior. He planned to construct a pulp paper factory, known as the Jari project, as he projected a shortage of fiber on the world market in the coming decades (about which he was right). The site was downriver from American Henry Ford's failed massive project to produce rubber, for which he built a workers' city in the jungle, Fordlandia.