U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization says Venezuela Prepared for World Food Crisis

[bananas]

Important article posted earlier by G_j in a deleted thread.
The article has more details about what Venezuela is doing.

http://www.venezuelanalysis.com/news/4254

U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization Says Venezuela Prepared for World Food Crisis

February 27th 2009, by James Suggett - Venezuelanalysis.com

Mérida, February 27th 2009 (Venezuelanalysis.com) -- The representative of the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) in Venezuela, Francisco Arias Milla, said the Venezuelan government’s investment in domestic food production and regional food security will strengthen its ability and that of its neighbors to withstand the worsening global food crisis.

“The FAO recognizes the efforts of the national government to introduce policies, strategies, and programs to confront the global economic crisis and the volatility of food prices, and at the same time to protect the food and nutritional security of the Venezuelan people,” Arias told the Bolivarian News Agency (ABN) on Thursday.

<snip>

The FAO predicts that the world food crisis will get worse over the next two years. The financial crisis is expected to push down food prices, providing a disincentive for farmers to plant. This will result in a decrease in the food supply and increase in prices in 2009 and 2010, further victimizing the world’s most vulnerable populations, according to Graziano da Silva, an FAO representative in Latin America and the Caribbean.

<snip>

[Peace Patriot]

1. Thanks for posting! It's very important for us to know what Venezuela is doing on

food security.

The Chavez government has been the pioneer on a number of policies that are benefiting Venezuelans and other nations, and that we need to learn about for application to our own country. These include food security (which I'm going to look into further and report back about), banking and financial security (many measures taken by the Chavez government, including accumulation of $40 billion in international cash reserves as a cushion against financial "shock and awe"), voting machine security (excellent!), public broadcasting (access by excluded groups and viewpoints), community councils (local control of federal funds), nationalization of critical resources and industries (a long topic--but basically a national security issue, as to oil, steel and a few other resources and industries), universal medical care (including medical clinics, often staffed by Cuban doctors, in poor areas where people have never seen a doctor), and literacy (fabulous success) and education (much progress up through university; their children's classical music program is simply awesome--not a Chavez government program, but they're providing financial support).

Now I'm going to finish reading about the food security program at Venezuelanalysis.com--a great info source. I read an excellent analysis of the Chavez government's land reform program, a while back. I will see if I can find that, too.

[Peace Patriot]

3. Here is the excellent article on Venezuela's economy that I mentioned above.

From the conclusion of the article:

"Venezuela is building industry like never before in the history of the country and they are doing it by going against almost everything the free trade model calls for. The Chavez government has actively controlled foreign investment from a variety of nations, funneling it into productive projects and nascent industries with Venezuelan majority-ownership. The state has greatly intervened, nationalizing major sectors of the economy, carrying out agrarian reform, using currency controls to control capital flight and regulate imports, nurturing import-substitution industries and directing their production towards more advanced national industry. The government has also made significant efforts toward building alternative sources of funding and bilateral development funds to escape the mandates of the World Bank and other international lending institutions, and increase the country's economic sovereignty.

"The Venezuelan state is playing a very active role in directing, planning, and guiding the development of the country, totally rejecting any illusions that the market will magically bring modernization. The Chavez government is pursuing sovereign industrial development and technology transfer on its own terms, with the help of a variety of allied countries, and there are few powerful groups in Venezuela, or abroad, in a position to stop them. To put it mildly, Venezuela has clearly shown that following the demands of Washington is not well-advised. To put it more bluntly, the Bolivarian Revolution seems to be demonstrating that the real path for the industrialization and development of the third world is social and economic revolution."


(MUCH MORE)

http://www.venezuelanalysis.com/analysis/2689

The Struggle to Industrialize Venezuela
October 5th 2007, by Chris Carlson –

[Peace Patriot]

4. Here's more of the article on the UN report on food security in Venezuela...

Arias specified Venezuela’s national subsidized food market, Mercal, its growing system of public cafeterias, and the state-run Venezuelan Food Production and Distribution company (PDVAL), which sells food at regulated prices, as examples of policies which “permit greater access to food for the most vulnerable strata of society.”

Venezuela has implemented several policies that the FAO recommends, including the fomenting of local food production through the strengthening of social networks, Arias pointed out.

Arias also praised the increase of state investment in the agricultural sector, efforts to organize producers, the expansion of citizen access to arable land through land reform, and the promotion of family farms under the administration of President Hugo Chávez.

Venezuela has also reached out to other Latin American countries to prepare joint strategies to deal with the food crisis. The trade bloc called the Bolivarian Alternative for the Americas, which is based on principles of mutual benefit and includes Venezuela and six other countries, has created a joint food company with funds pooled in a joint food security fund.

Arias said these efforts have paid off for the countries involved. “We believe there is a group of countries, including Venezuela, that is better prepared to confront this crisis and whatever other crisis that may come,” he said. “This is due to the institutionalization of food security in the region,” he added.

According to Venezuela’s Agriculture and Land Ministry, agricultural production in Venezuela rose by 3% last year, bringing the total increase in agricultural production to 24% since Chávez took office a decade ago. Specifically, corn production has increased by 205%, rice by 94%, sugar by 13%, and milk by 11% over the last decade, reducing Venezuela’s dependency on food imports.

In 2007, Venezuela became the first Latin American country to help the FAO finance agricultural production projects in third countries when it contributed $4.6 million to FAO small scale irrigation and water conservation projects in Mali and Burkina Faso.

(MORE)

http://www.venezuelanalysis.com/news/4254

--------

I still can't find the article on land reform. This article (above) mentions some of its successes. Basically, what the article I read a while ago said is that the Chavez government--unlike previous, stupid land reform--is promoting smart land reform, that is, land reform that, a) provides those given ag land technical support, support in organizing markets, and financial support, to do it right, and b) is requiring that they actually produce food, as a condition for eventually getting title to the land (which they can then deed to children but cannot sell). These measures eliminate the waste, corruption and failed efforts of previous (rightwing government) land reform programs. Previous governments not only created corruption-prone, failure-prone land reform programs, they totally neglected food security, and let Venezuela become almost entirely import-dependent for food, as well as everything else.

The article on the Chavez government's manufacturing/development programs (posted above this one) discusses the creation of local/regional auto manufacturing, tractor manufacturing, and naval shipbuilding, and other local/regional business/job creation programs. The rightwing governments totally neglected these sectors as well, and created an urban elite dependent on imports and getting rich on oil profits while letting their country and their poorer countrymen (the vast majority) go to hell. The item that I remember most particularly--from the article I can't find right now (which was about land reform and other sectors) is that the rich oil elite in Venezuela was even importing machine parts for the oil industry! This most obvious opportunity to create jobs for the poor and the less skilled was ignored--in their selfish pursuit of Gucci bags and Jaguar sports cars.

With attention to democratic institutions, such as honest, transparent elections, the grass roots political movements were able, finally, to elect a government and intelligent leadership that is working for everyone's good, not just the rich elite. And it is no wonder--reading the details of the Chavez government's economic program--that Chavez has a 70% approval rating.

[Peace Patriot]

8. Venezuela's Agrarian Land Reform: More like Lincoln than Lenin

Venezuela's Agrarian Land Reform: More like Lincoln than Lenin

February 25th 2005, by Seth DeLong - COHA

Chavez Emulates Lincoln

In the history of land reform, the most accurate analogy to illustrate what is transpiring in Venezuela is not Zimbabwe or Cuba – Chavez officials have repeatedly emphasized that they are not emulating the Cuban model of land reform – but the U.S.’ own Homestead Act. Signed by President Abraham Lincoln in 1862, the measure declared that any U.S. or intended citizen of at least 21 years of age could claim up to 160 acres of government land. Like Chavez’s Vuelta al Campo, there were many restrictions in the Act which benefited the recipients by ensuring that the new reform could not be manipulated by entrenched, moneyed interests. Under Lincoln’s legislation, the land could not be sold to speculators or used as debt collateral, and only after five years of “actual settlement and cultivation,” according to Section 2, could the homesteader submit an application for a land patent. Similarly, in Chavez’s plan, only after three years may the peasants obtain legal ownership of the land, and only then after they have rendered it productive. The Homestead Act was one of the most progressive and far-reaching government initiatives in U.S. history insofar as it helped to develop and secure an agrarian-based middle class, which had an epic impact on the future democratization of the nation. That Chavez is trying to emulate it in his own country, as part of his plan to extirpate Venezuela’s entrenched inequality, is an effort that all right-minded people should applaud.

(MORE)

http://www.venezuelanalysis.com/analysis/963

---------------

I finally found the article I was looking for! This is a very good analysis of the Chavez government's agricultural program--history, problems, needs, objections, conflicts, past and current land reform programs, the works. Very informative. And, according to the UN report posted above, it has had considerable success at reversing Venezuela's food insecurity (dependence on imports).

[ronnie624]

9. Excellent.

I remember this article being posted a few years ago, but reading it again will make a good refresher.

Infinitely superior to the convoluted yammerings and religious mumbo-jumbo of the free marketeers (One of them even equated the unregulated capitalist market process to the "physical forces that cause life itself, evolution, and causes the self-regulation of Earth":eyes:).

[leftstreet]

2. K&R

Thanks for posting this. I missed it before.

[G_j]

5. thanks K&R

this is a must read IMO

[zeemike]

6. Well that is disappointing I'll bet

To those that want to undermine his administration.
The most effective way is to mess with people's food, now they will have to try something else.
Obama is unlikely to go for direct military intervention with a lame excuse like the war on drugs so the only thing left I can see is economic chaos.

[bertman]

7. Very good. Thanks for posting, bananas and PeacePatriot.