Agriculture in Venezuela has a much smaller share of the economy than in any other Latin American country. From the discovery of oil in Venezuelain the early twentieth century to the 1940s, the importance of agriculture declined rapidly, and with the beginning of large-scale industrial development in the 1940s, agriculture and land reform was largely neglected by successive governments (although a 1960 land reform law did see 200,000 families receive land, largely in the early 1960s). The country imports most of its food, mainly from Colombia and the United States.[1] Since 1999, under theBolivarian Revolution of President Hugo Chávez, agriculture has had a somewhat higher priority.
History
Prior to the 1950s and the initiation of large-scale oil exports, agriculture, fishing, and forestry were central to the Venezuelan economy, producing more than half the gross domestic product (GDP). As late as the 1930s, agriculture still provided 22 percent of GDP and occupied 60 percent of the labor force. As the petrochemical industry expanded rapidly in the 1970s and 1980s, however, the proportion of the labor force in agriculture dropped from one-fifth to about one-tenth. By 1988 agriculture contributed only 5.9 percent of GDP, employed 13 percent of the labor force, and furnished barely 1 percent of total exports. Agriculture has continued to decline, accounting for about 5 percent of GDP and 10 percent of employment in 2004.[1]According to a 1997 government survey, 3.4m hectares of land are suitable for farming (and a further 17.1m hectares suitable for pasture) - but only 0.7m hectares were employed in grain production.
Venezuela saw several attempts at land reform before 1998. During the brief first period of democracy (1945-48), the Democratic Action government redistributed land which it said had been gained illicitly by members of previous governments, and in mid-1948 it enacted an agrarian reform law. Most of the land redistributed in this way was returned to its previous owners during the 1948-58 dictatorship of Marcos Perez Jimenez.[3] After the 1958 restoration of democracy, a new land reform law was enacted in March 1960, with reform in the early 1960s concentrated in the northeastern states of Miranda, Aragua and Carabobo, and coming largely from expropriated private landholdings.The reform was accompanied by a considerable increase in agricultural production. Ultimately the reform saw about 200,000 families receive transfers of land, largely in the early 1960s.
Bolivarian Revolution
Main articles: Economic policy of the Hugo Chávez government, Bolivarian Revolution, Mission Zamora, and Mission Vuelta al Camp Venezuela's present-day agriculture is characterized by inefficiency and low investment, with 70 percent of agricultural land owned by 3 percent of agricultural proprietors (one of the highest levels of land concentration in Latin America). According to the Land and Agricultural Reform Law of 2001 (see Mission Zamora), public and private land deemed to be illegally held or unproductive is to be redistributed. From 1999 to 2006, 130 landless workers were assassinated by sicarios paid by opponents to the reform.[5] As of January 2009, the Venezuelan government had redistributed nearly 2.7 million hectares of idle land (6.6 million acres—nearly 1/3 of the latifundio land existing prior to 1998) to 180,000 landless peasant families.
A new Bolivarian Mission, Mission Vuelta al Campo was announced in 2005; it seeks to encourage impoverished and unemployed urban Venezuelans to willingly return to the countryside. This has involved using land recovered from private owners where ownership could not be demonstrated, as well as nationalisation. For example in 2008 the government expropriated El Frio, a 63,000 hectare estate in Apure (larger than the tourist island of Isla Margarita), as its owners (reputed to include Nelson Rockefeller) could not demonstrate legal land title. The Venezuelan government has also employed foreign expertise to develop Venezuela's agricultural potential, for example by working with Vietnamese agronomists to develop planting techniques and rice seed hybrids appropriate to Venezuelan agricultural conditions. The land reform program has nevertheless been the subject of criticism from a variety of sources, with farmers said to be lacking sufficient government support,particularly in the case of urban residents moving to the countryside to develop farming cooperatives.
By 2008, Venezuela was self-sufficient in its two most important grains, corn and rice, with production increases of 132% for corn and between 71-94% for rice since 1998. The country also achieved self-sufficiency in pork, representing an increase in production of nearly 77% since 1998. Venezuela is also on its way to reaching self-sufficiency in a number of other important staple foods, including beef, chicken, and eggs, for which domestic production currently meets 70%, 85%, and 80% of national demand, respectively. Milk production has increased by 900% to 1.96 million tons, fulfilling 55 percent of national demand. Many other crops have seen significant increases over the past decade, including black beans (143%), root vegetables (115%), and sunflowers for cooking oil production (125 percent).
In 2010 the government announced that there had been a 48% increase in lands under cultivation since 1998. Over the same periods, production of some staples had increased substantially: "Rice production has risen by 84%, reaching nearly 1.3 million tons yearly while milk production has risen to 2.18 million tons, a 47% increase.
After the 2010 parliamentary elections, the Venezuelan government stepped up efforts to restructure the agricultural sector, nationalising the country's largest agricultural supply company (renaming itAgropatria) and fertilizer company (FertiNitro).
Carlos Alfredo Torres Duran
C.I. 17.467.916
Electronica en Estado Solido
http://www.nationsencyclopedia.com/Americas/Venezuela-AGRICULTURE.html
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