Food sovereignty--the transformation of agriculture in Venezuela

[Peace Patriot]

Moving Toward Land Reform, Food Sovereignty and Agroecology in Venezuela

By ALAN BROUGHTON - AUSTRALIA-VENEZUELA SOLIDARITY NETWORK, August 23rd 2010

A massive transformation of agriculture is occurring in Venezuela, a transformation that has lessons for every other country in the world. The Law of the Land and Agrarian Development, the Law of Food Sovereignty and Security, and the Law of Integrated Agricultural Health set out the agenda (they can be found on www.mat.gob.ve, in Spanish). The policies are based on the premises that farmers should have control of their land and product, that the country should produce its own food, and that chemical fertilisers and pesticides should not be part of agriculture.

Land in Venezuela has been in the hands of about 500 families and corporations since the 1800s and worked by an impoverished peasantry. Much of the land was underutilised as cattle ranching, pulpwood plantations, export crops such as sugar cane, or left idle. Most food was imported. This land is gradually being taken over by the government and handed to local communities who have been fighting for it for two centuries.

Food sovereignty is a key government policy, guaranteed in the constitution: “Food sovereignty is the inalienable right of a nation to define and develop priorities and foods appropriate to its specific conditions, in local and national production, conserving agricultural and cultural diversity and self sufficiency and guaranteeing food supply to all the population.” Food imports are only allowed if there is a shortfall of production in the country, and exports occur only after domestic demand is met.

Control over production is in the hands of the farmer cooperatives on the newly distributed lands. Assistance is provided by the government for cooperative management and to establish processing plants so the farmers are no longer victim to the powers of the processors and distributors to set prices. Agriculture is planned, at three levels: the National Agrarian Assembly, the Regional Agrarian Assemblies and the local Peasants and Producers Councils. The Regional Assemblies are elected by the Peasants and Producers Councils.

One goal is the elimination of chemical fertilisers and pesticides. Venezuela has had a long experience in their use and the change will be gradual. Agroecology colleges have been set up with the assistance of Cuban advisors, as Cuba went through this process twenty years ago and is now almost fully organic. Agroecology is promoted in all agricultural development projects, to producers and institutes.

(MORE)

http://venezuelanalysis.com/analysis/5586

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This post is intended as a companion to my post about Venezuela's state-run food markets, here
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=405x40514

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While Cuba has almost completely converted to organic agriculture, and Venezuela is making a determined effort to do so, the U.S. continues to peddle chemical fertilizers and toxic pesticides here and abroad because the U.S. is run by multinational corporations who profit from these poisons, and who couldn't give a crap about any country's "food sovereignty" nor about Mother Earth.

You certainly won't get information like this from our corpo-fascist press which only publishes rightwing "talking points" about Venezuela (and Cuba). Venezuela's society and government are not perfect, but neither are they a bad society and a bad government. They generate and implement a lot of good ideas. Learning from Cuba to convert to organic agriculture is one of them. There are many more.

I urge my fellow and sister Americans to seek out the information that is denied to you in our corpo-fascist press, which should be covering stories like this one, if they were at all interested in doing their jobs as journalists. And think deeply about what they do print/broadcast and why. We are being gravely disinformed about the leftist democracy movement that has swept Latin America, and we are being deliberately deprived of some very important developments in our hemisphere and some very good ideas--like this one: how government can encourage organic agriculture.

[Judi Lynn]

1. A few photos of the organopónicos (organic gardens) IN Caracas!

A few photos of Venezuelan AGRICULTURE WITHIN CITY LIMITS! "Organopónicos," organic gardening Venezuelans learned from Cubans, who had to find out how to grow food the hard way when their old methods suddenly were stripped away from them as the U.S. agreement with Russia demanded Russia suspend ALL business with Cuba, and things like tractors and fertilizer were instantly a thing of the past.

Cuba gained world attention for its astounding organic agriculture, discovery of techniques not in use anywhere else.

Venezuela organopónicos photos:

http://www.globalexchange.org.nyud.net:8090/images/VZ_Organoponico_2007_World_Press_Association.jpg

http://venezuelanalysis.com.nyud.net:8090/files/images/nora_verezuela_bolivar.gif http://21stcenturysocialism.com.nyud.net:8090/files/bolivar%20hydro.jpg http://guarico.com.ve.nyud.net:8090/wp-content/themes/2009/06/organoponico6.jpg



Near the Hilton Hotel in Caracas

http://www.mpcomunas.gob.ve.nyud.net:8090/images/noticias/big/organoponico2010aa.jpg

http://www.cityfarmer.info.nyud.net:8090/wp-content/uploads/2008/01/caracas.jpg http://3.bp.blogspot.com.nyud.net:8090/_m7dDvVYKO2c/SL8Dcun_yzI/AAAAAAAAEo0/iUxTqo5VxKw/s400/HUERTO.jpg



Returning to read your article, Moving Toward Land Reform, Food Sovereignty and Agroecology in Venezuela a little later.
Thanks for posting this! We need to know.

[bherrera]

2. I read in the press Venezuela imports a lot of food

And the government's distribution system is so inefficient, the food rots in the ports. This is a story showing why this system they have doesn't work. Pragmatic socialists would not waste money the way these Venezuelans do.

[Vincardog]

3. That could be why they want to produce their own food organically and locally

[Judi Lynn]

4. You have a problem with imported food? Talk it over with the Venezuelan oligarchs

who arranged that, leaving only the wealthy long ago with the adequate means to buy imported foods. It was easy for them, that's all that mattered, and #### the poor.

THAT is not the fault of Hugo Chavez. He has been working steadily to REVERSE this problem from his first day in office.

Just stuff that material you intend to post here day after day. You don't seem to realize you're dealing with people who have already learned the opposite of the trash you're attempting to spew here. We are incapable of believing it as we know the truth, ourselves.

[bherrera]

10. I believe Mr Chavez has been president for 11 years

Evidently the man has been in power for a long time, therefore he lacks any excuses, blaming others doesn't make much sense. I also see a very evident phenomenom, the government keeps the exchange rate under control, and this makes local industry, including the agricultural sector, non-competitive. Thus the fault is really the foreign currency flow which the government wastes (or possibly steals into bank accounts overseas). This excess foreign currency allows the government, which is known for its mismanagement skills, to keep the currency too high, which in turn makes imports more attractive. This is called "Dutch Disease", you may see it described in Wikipedia.

Another problem, of course, is the poor governance skills of the Chavez administration, which seems to be populated by corrupt politicians and incompetents. The rotten food problem is an excellent example. We must also consider the erratic government policy, which causes insecurity in the private sector, because Mr Chavez is, as has been pointed out, a fascist, and not a true socialist.

[EFerrari]

6. You have quite a right wing press.

When the present government in Venezuela came into power, agriculture was dead as a door knob. Restarting and re-envisioning agriculture in Venezuela has been a long process.

[bherrera]

12. Statistics show a different story

I reviewed the statistics to check the nature of your comment, and I do not see a marked change in agricultural production growth in Venezuela. If we factor into this the huge increase in income the government received due to a quadrupling of oil prices since Mr Chavez gained power 11 years ago, the performance in this sector has been anemic. A country such as Venezuela, which is very undeveloped and has a strong population growth, should grow the agricultural sector more, to reduce the import flows.

My source is

http://www.tradingeconomics.com/venezuela/agriculture-value-added-annual-percent-growth-wb-data.html

This chart shows the actual value added, as you will see there has been nearly continuous growth (to be expected as the population increases), with a sharper increase during the spike in oil prices around 2008. I don't have the figures for 2010, but I suspect the drop in gross domestic product which impacts Venezuela since 2008, and which is highly anomalous as it continues to be a sharp drop while at the same time the country suffers from hyper inflation, must be impacting agricultural production in a similar fashion. Thus, as I stated, the performance of this country in the agricultural sector is not that good, and I doubt it will improve because the government advocates communist style comunes and nationalization of land, which in other nations history has shown led to serious collapse in agricultural production.

[Billy Burnett]

5. I remember now-tombstoned DUers ridiculing the Cuba/Ven local ag coperative.

Same ones that blamed Hugito for the drought, and ridiculed the Cuba/Ven energy coperative.


Thanks for posting this important information.

[Judi Lynn]

7. That never made a lot of sense, did it? Very strange. What a loss!

http://slantmouth.com.nyud.net:8090/articles/so-long/images/so-long-title.jpg

[Mika]

8. A great post I found, speaking to the Cuba-Venezuela solidarity.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=405&topic_id=8893&mesg_id=9044

Billy Burnett (1000+ posts) Sun Oct-12-08 11:34 AM
Response to Reply #43

44. Interesting point.

As they have during seriously hard times before, the Cuban people will get by. They won't panic. They'll get to work. They've done it before, and they'll do it again.

They will use their ingenuity combined with solidarity to marshal their resources and assure that no one goes hungry or homeless. Community farms are being quickly rebuilt after the storms, and more will continue to develop. Just as always, even during the hardest of times, Cubans will build more schools, train more teachers, and will be continually improving their community social infrastructure. The exact same is true for their universal health care system. More clinics will be built, more doctors and auxiliaries will be trained, and Cubans will have even more access to health care. As always in Cuba, children and their wellbeing will come first.

They do this because they are seriously dedicated to their human values. No matter how poor their small country, they will work shoulder to shoulder to ensure their security and sovereignty.

Next year, as a result of the globalization collapse, many will be forced into homelessness in the US, have no access to routine health care, and be lucky if they can secure nutrition and an education for their children. This just will not happen in Cuba. Sure, there's work to do, but they will share their burden so that no one falls through the cracks even if Venezuela can't fulfill all of it's promises, and you can be sure that Cubans and Venezuelans will work together to mitigate the impact of the downturn.

To the point. Beautiful, Billy. Beautiful. :toast:

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[Joe Chi Minh]

9. It really does your heart good to see those photos.

[SocialistJan]

11. But FAO says Venezuela is importing more food than ever and producing a lot less of what is consumed

I'm a bit confused with this news.

Do you have real numbers showing better food sovereignty in Venezuela ???

Thanks in advance.