The startling successes of Venezuela's food self-sufficiency program...

[Peace Patriot]

I've read a number of analyses of the Chavez government's food and agricultural program. Most of them were descriptions of planning and principles, but what of...oh...how is it all working out? is it succeeding, especially as to solving Venezuela's great food insecurity (dependence on imported food)? This well-documented article (37 footnotes, all with links) by Christina Schiavoni and William Camacaro is the first detailed analysis that I've read which provides statistical results, and they are quite startling.

So let me give you the results of this study first, then I will summarize the problems (presented early in the article) that the Chavez government faced when it was first elected.

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

http://www.venezuelanalysis.com/analysis/4873

The Venezuelan Effort to Build a New Food and Agriculture System

October 18th 2009, by Christina Schiavoni and William Camacaro - Monthly Review

Yielding Results

In its commitment to food sovereignty, the Venezuelan government has taken unprecedented steps to bolster its agricultural sector, as evidenced by an increase of 5,783 percent in agricultural financing from 1998 to 2007.(20) This investment in agriculture is driving Venezuela's ability to feed itself through its own food production. With continued progress over recent years, Venezuela's food production capacity is currently at 21 million tons, which represents a 24 percent overall increase from 1998. (21) When these figures are analyzed in terms of specific food products, it is clear that the foods of greatest importance to the Venezuelan diet have achieved significantly higher increases in production.

By 2008, Venezuela reached levels of self sufficiency in its two most important grains, corn and rice, with production increases of 132 percent and 71 percent respectively since 1998. (22) The country also achieved self-sufficiency in pork, representing an increase in production of nearly 77 percent since 1998. Furthermore, Venezuela is 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 percent, 85 percent, and 80 percent of national demand, respectively. Milk production has increased by 900 percent to 1.96 million tons, fulfilling 55 percent of national demand. Spurred by a "scarcity" of milk created by private distributors in early 2008, the government recently pledged its commitment to attain self-sufficiency in milk production in the near future. Many other crops have seen significant increases over the past decade, including black beans (143 percent), root vegetables (115 percent), and sunflowers for cooking oil production (125 percent). This suggests a prioritization of culturally important crops and a focus on matching domestic agricultural production with national consumer demands.

In a remarkable reversal of the trends of recent decades, Venezuela is actually becoming poised to export certain crops (in addition to coffee and cacao, which are already exported in limited amounts), after surpassing levels sufficient to meet national demand. The country is already in a position to export pork-currently at 113 percent of national demand-and is projected to have a sufficient surplus of corn for export within a year. Both Chávez and Agricultural Minister Elías Jaua have emphasized that the goal is for Venezuela to produce enough food to feed its own population while supporting other countries that lack sufficient food to meet domestic needs. Venezuela hopes to play this role out of recognition that support from its neighbors in the form of food imports has been critical during its own transition from food dependence to food sovereignty.

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

In addition to these remarkable achievements in food production--a big reversal of the pre-Chavez trend of importing most food--the government ag program is based on some of the most advanced thinking and methods of sustainable farming.

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

Working with Nature

Not only are Venezuelans working to increase domestic food production, they are concerned with how food is being produced. Miguel Angel Nuñez of the Venezuela-based Institute for the Production and Research of Tropical Agriculture (IPIAT) describes how Venezuela's farmers are leading the country onto the cutting edge of the movement for agroecology.(23) Agroecology essentially means farming with nature rather than against it-by building up soil as the basis for productivity, using sustainable inputs, and working with natural cycles. Nuñez explains that an agroecological approach to food production provides a viable alternative to the one-size-fits-all model of industrial agriculture, which degrades the soil, creates extra waste while requiring extra cost, and fails to reach the same levels of productivity as systems adapted to Venezuela's unique tropical conditions. It also requires expensive, often toxic, external inputs, such as synthetic pesticides and fertilizers, sold by multinational agribusinesses. Nuñez and the farmers he works with view dependence upon such inputs to be in direct conflict with the concept of food sovereignty, as well as an affront to human health and the environment.

For many Venezuelan farmers, the process of reclaiming agricultural land also involves reclaiming agricultural practices that respect both ecology and culture. Increasingly, they are returning to traditional crop varieties and growing techniques, composting to boost soil fertility, saving and exchanging traditional seeds, diversifying crops, using natural forms of pest control, and forming networks to exchange agroecological knowledge and techniques. The government has developed a variety of ways to support these farmer-led advances. Venezuela is one of the few countries in the world to make credit available specifically for farmers engaged in agroecological projects. (24) The government has also launched twenty-four laboratories for the development of biological pest control and fertilizers, "in an effort to eliminate the toxic agrochemicals of Bayer, Cargill, Monsanto, and others," explains Agricultural Minister Jaua. (25)

In 2008, the Law for Integrated Agricultural Health officially established agroecology as the scientific basis for sustainable agriculture in Venezuela and mandated the phasing out of toxic agrochemicals. According to Nuñez, while there are still divergent and contradictory views within the government as to which path Venezuela's agricultural sector should take, the government has consistently showed a willingness to learn from social movements. The new law is a direct result of such dialogue, as was the passage of a moratorium on genetically modified crops and the founding of an agroecological institute in the state of Barinas, run in partnership with Brazil's Landless Workers Movement (MST) and Vía Campesina. Now, farmers, agroecologists, and government representatives are working together to develop a National Agroecology Plan, with the goal of further advancing agroecology at all levels of Venezuelan society.

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

The article goes on to discuss other aspects of Venezuela's food and agricultural programs, including a section on "Communities Feeding Themselves"--response to the opposition's food hoarding to create shortages: 16,532 subsidized food outlets; 6,075 community food cooking kitchens, which preferentially obtain fresh food from local farmers. Results: "Venezuela's wide range of feeding programs, combined with other forms of social support, have enabled the country to meet the first Millennium Development Goal of halving hunger and poverty ahead of the 2015 target and have also cut malnutrition-related deaths in half from 1998 to 2006."

--

There is also a section called "Social Property" about the profiteering of export/import middlemen--one of the chief creators of the food insecurity problem--and socialization, not of private property, but of the national necessity of food production and distribution. In short, private food producers, processors and distributors can be fined for failing to produce and distribute food in efforts to manipulate prices (or to bring down the government).

The conclusion is entitled, "A Vision of Food Sovereignty for Venezuela and Beyond" and discusses use of the oil revenues to fund these food self-sufficiency programs:

--

"The recent decline in oil prices has led some to wonder what will become of the Bolivarian Revolution and its social programs and to point to reliance on oil wealth for social spending as a strategic flaw. Others, however, see the government using its oil wealth to diversify the economy and to build new systems that will ultimately sustain themselves. This is what Chávez claims to be doing with respect to the country's food sovereignty efforts. A promising indication is that the UN Food and Agriculture Organization recently recognized Venezuela as having taken necessary steps to strengthen its ability and that of its neighbors to withstand the worsening global food crisis."

--

The writer rather plaintively suggests that the U.S. and other countries might learn something from Venezuela--but that ain't likely in the U.S. any time soon.

Now let me go back and quote the beginning conditions in agriculture and food self-sufficiency, when the Chavez government first came to power:

--

Ironically, the very oil wealth that today is being used to rebuild Venezuela's food and agriculture system is largely to blame for its prior dismantling. Venezuela is a country with agrarian roots, as indicated by its music, art, and culinary traditions. However, the discovery of vast petroleum reserves and the subsequent development of a major oil exporting industry led to the neglect of the country's agriculture sector over the course of the twentieth century, as an influx of foreign currency made it relatively cheap to import food and other goods. (4)

An abandoned agricultural sector meant abandoned rural communities, leading to a mass exodus of people from the countryside into urban areas, particularly in and around the capital of Caracas. By 1960, the percentage of the population living in rural areas had dropped by nearly half to just 35 percent, and then to a mere 12 percent by the 1990s, making Venezuela home to one of the most urbanized populations in Latin America. (5) Additionally, with domestic food production greatly reduced, Venezuela became the only Latin American country to be a net importer of agricultural products. (6)

By the time Chávez was elected at the end of 1998, Venezuela's remaining rural communities were in crisis, and the majority of those who had migrated into cities and urban margins faced substandard housing and sanitation, lack of adequate social services, and lack of decent job opportunities. (7) Over half of the population lived in poverty, and 42.5 percent lived in extreme poverty. (8) Venezuela depended on food imports for more than 70 percent of its food supply, putting many staples out of reach for the poor. Such dependency on food imports also put the population as a whole in a highly vulnerable situation.

---

Now back to the stats I quoted at the beginning of this OP...

--an increase of 5,783 percent in agricultural financing from 1998 to 2007
--food production capacity currently at 21 million tons--a 24 percent overall increase from 1998
--corn and rice production increases of 132 percent and 71 percent respectively since 1998
--self-sufficiency in pork--an increase in production of nearly 77 percent since 1998
--on its way to reaching self-sufficiency in beef, chicken, and eggs--70%, 85 % and 80 % of national demand
--milk production has increased by 900 percent--55 percent of national demand.
--significant increases over the past decade in black beans (143 %), root vegetables (115 %), and sunflowers for cooking oil production (125 %).
--ready to export pork; projected to have a sufficient surplus of corn for export within a year.

The Chavez government food and agriculture policy has turned a country that was dependent on food imports for more than 70% of its food supply, into a food exporter.

This is an extremely difficult thing to do. It takes decades to train and support new farmers, and to bring fallow land into production. It has also been done with special effort to convert farming from bad, environment-killing corporate agriculture to nature-friendly practices.

Our corpo-fascist rulers have brainwashed us to be suspicious of big government programs--although they never doubt big government in the military business or when it comes to trillion dollar bailouts of banksters. Government can be over-controlling, dictatorial and arbitrary--and very, very wrong, as we have learned to our grief with the Bush Junta. But Venezuela's food and ag program has operated mainly by persuasion, incentives and education, by careful land reform (no arbitrary or uncompensated land confiscations), and the strong influence of campesinos--the best organic farmers who understand the importance of food being local. It has taken an intelligent and politically strong government to accomplish these things--especially given where they started. But it has also taken the willingness and cooperation of many thousands of people.

We could, indeed, learn a great deal from Venezuela--both from its mistakes and its successes--if we weren't so propagandized to hate and oppose Chavez because...why? You tell me. Our country's political establishment is as insane on the matter of Venezuela as it is on the matter of Cuba--insane, mind-numbing hatred and fear, generated by the have's who can never have enough, to prevent the rest of us from considering other ways of doing things that don't involve pure greed and selfishness.

We have the same problems here that the Chavez government has tried to address in Venezuela--loss of farmers, loss of farm land, disintegration of rural communities, flight to urban areas, food from God-knows-where in the supermarket, food poisoned with GMOs and pesticides, failure to support local, organic agriculture, and tremendously perilous food insecurity.

Why can't we learn from Venezuela how to reverse these bad and dangerous trends, or at least have our creativity stimulated by their ideas and programs? Look at the crap on corpo-fascist TV, compared to what we could be learning about!

This article brings some perspective to our political establishment’s extremely distorted view of the Chavez government and the Venezuelan people who support that government. There are many people here who would like to know about Venezuela’s food and ag programs. And there are small organic farmers all over the U.S. trying to improve our food supply and our food future. How much more could be done—and how much faster it could be done—if corporate lobbyists weren’t poisoning the wells in Washington DC!

[Judi Lynn]

1. The material in this post is going to be useful for a very long time.

We hear so very little on the subject beyond wingdingers' claims Chavez is an abject failure in increasing food supply, which we've known for ages is a pathetic lie.

We've known forever the oligarchs never made food production, as well as industry, a priority, since they have had the ability to afford ALL the imported food products they could ever use, and as far as the poor majority, that part of the population could just go pound sand. Screw 'em. They had no importance, other than the cheap labor they could provide for the elites lucky to be born wealthy enough.

These stats are fascinating, and it's so good to see the assistance and encouragement and planning going into improving food production within the country. It's completely impressive.

Thank you, Peace Patriot.

Already have filed this for future use.

[wroberts189]

11. Damn straight.. KNR nt

[Braulio]

2. Interesting fact

According to the above:

"Venezuela's food production capacity is currently at 21 million tons, which represents a 24 percent overall increase from 1998."

Venezuela's population, on the other hand, has increased by 23 % since 1998.

Which means the increase in national production capacity has been, on a per capita basis... 1 %. If we take into account the fact that GDP has increased a lot more (because oil prices are about 4X what they were in 1998), then we can see that national production contribution to overall food supply has DROPPED in real terms.

There's also another key issue the government should consider: they are trying to prop up national food production using oil revenues - but at the same time they're squeezing down on the capital flows needed to grow national industrial infrastructure and productivity - and this includes PDVSA.

Thus they have been making short-sighted decisions, using their oil income to subsidize food and gasoline prices, buy weapons, and make irrational investments (such as the Pernambuco refinery in Brazil) while cutting back in investment INSIDE the country.

[Mika]

3. Speaking of making short-sighted decisions ..

Listen to the entire interview..


Listen to the Story
The Bryant Park Project
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=91681112

---

[spanza]

4. The FAO

provides the exact information about agricultural imports/exports for every country. Let's see their evolution in Venezuela from 1998 to 2007 (top 20 merchandises).

Imports: +121%
Exports: -68%

"The Chavez government food and agriculture policy has turned a country that was dependent on food imports for more than 70% of its food supply, into a food exporter."

What a bunch of CRAPOLA!

Explain to me how are we less dependent on food imports when we import 2,21 times more food than in 1998.

Once again, you have shown us why we should never trust the Chavez-headed (it should be self-obvious by now) propaganda site called venezuelanalysis. I suggest you do your research with real institutions.

http://faostat.fao.org/desktopdefault.aspx?pageid=342&lang=en&country=236

[Peace Patriot]

5. The article is from the "Monthly Review," a publication of Food First, one of the best

and most reliable sources of information and research on the world food crisis. It was only reprinted by venezuelanalysis.com--which you would know by doing a little research.

Here's a rundown of the top three Board of Trustee officers of Food First. It is NOT an arm of the Venezuelan government.

Joyce E. King, Ph.D.
President

Joyce E. King, Ph.D. holds the Benjamin E. Mays Chair of Urban Teaching, Learning, and Leadership in the College of Education at Georgia State University. She is a graduate of Stanford University where she received a Doctor of Philosophy in the Social Foundations of Education and a Bachelor of Arts degree in Sociology. As a W.K. Kellogg Foundation Fellowship recipient, Dr. King studied women’s participation in grass roots social change movements in Africa, South America and France.


Hank Herrera
Treasurer

Hank Herrera, M.D., is a psychiatrist, a Robert Wood Johnson Clinical
Scholar and a Kellogg National Fellow. He maintains a private practice of
psychiatry in Rochester, New York. He founded the Center for Popular
Research, Education and Policy (C-PREP), devoted to participatory action
research, capacity building, and policy development with communities seeking
to achieve self-reliance. Through C-PREP, Hank provides management services
for the New York Sustainable Agriculture Working Group...


LaDonna Redmond
Vice-president

LaDonna Redmond is a community food security activist working on Chicago’s west side. She is the President and CEO of The Institute for Community Resource Development (ICRD), a non-profit, community based organization that assists residents of urban communities obtain access to safe, healthy food through the development of alternative food systems. Ms. Redmond and her husband Tracey are involved in developing an urban farm in partnership with the University of Illinois.

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

You can throw random stats around and make tart points in reply, but I prefer reading articles that contain substantial research and analysis. One stat or two stats--wherever you pull them from--is not an argument. The exhaustive research and context-building in the article I cited requires substantial research and analysis to refute it. And no one has, to my knowledge.

[Braulio]

6. Whatever

They may have all those PhDs, but they are just partially highlighting statistics. Frankly, it matters little if the argument here goes this way or that way. The truth is Venezuela has serious structural problems caused by an overvalued currency and high inflation. Can't escape that. It's like the Terminator, it never stops.

[Peace Patriot]

8. "Whatever"??

"Frankly, it matters little if the argument here goes this way or that way."

So you just walk away from it? You're right and all these food experts, who went to such trouble to provide substantial analysis and statistics, are wrong? But, hey, "it matters little."

Neither do you provide anything close to a substantial refutation.

What would you do with the oil revenues?

What would you do to correct Venezuela's long-standing food insecurity problem?

And what is your criticism of Venezuela's food/agriculture policy--or that of other objective and knowledgeable experts who refute (or try to refute) this article's conclusions?

Just take your word for it that Venezuela's "structural problems" will be Venezuela's "Terminator"?

We have "The Terminator" here in California as governor, and, yeah, the banksters, corpo-fascist greedbags and all-around assholes among the super-rich can really do an excellent job of destroying economies and shitting on workers and the poor. And, if they can, they will most certainly "Terminate" Venezuela. But it is my contention--based on widespread reading in many sources, and a lifetime of watching my own country get looted and destroyed by fascist cabals--that the Chavez government, and other leftist governments in South America, are following the wisest, most conservative policies possible, to fight off "neoliberalism" in the first place, and now, in this context of U.S.-induced global economic meltdown--spending money on bootstrapping the poor, building infrastructure, helping small businesses, strong central government regulation of banksters, profiteers and prices, and addressing long-standing problems (such as the flight from rural areas to the cities, the toxic failures of corporate agriculture and food insecurity).

These are conservative policies because they conserve--save, build up--the workforce, education (creativity, technical know-how), community strength, and the productive capacity of the country, not to mention the environment (soil viability, water quality, downstream fisheries, green bulwarks against global warming, food production). The political labels are all wrong! It is the World Bank/Wall Street gang who are the radicals--exploiting to the point of exhaustion everything and everybody. Wild, profligate gifts to the least productive members of society! Massive looting of the public coffers to enrich the rich--with no thought of jobs or environmental integrity or the future.

So I challenge you to provide something other than "neoliberal" tidbits about Venezuela's "structural problems" and to say what you would do with Venezuela's oil revenues, what you would do about Venezuela's agriculture, and the results of the long term thinking that you have given to Venezuelan issues of education, health care, poverty-reduction, industrial and infrastructure development, and regional economic integration and independence. What is your program for Venezuela?

[Braulio]

10. Yes, your "food experts" are wrong

You've chosen to quote selectively from "food experts". That's fine as long as the discussion is limited to the selected topic. For example, you can argue about pork production being up.

But there's an inexorable force acting in the Venezuelan economy, the official exchange rate, which renders local producers uncompetitive. The Bolivar at its current quote is just too high - it has reached this position because inflation has been ranging between 25 and 30 % per year, yet the exchange rate has been kept fixed. This trick has been tried by other countries, eventually they had to borrow a LOT of money to prop up the surreal exchange rate (Argentina's austral is a classic example). Eventually lenders don't lend, and the ponzi-scheme-like nature of government policy collapses...they run out of money to prop up the currency and subsidize internal consumption.

Do you REALLY think the Venezuelan government is going to be able to force PDVSA to sell gasoline as if it were untreated water in the future? Will oil income be enough to subsidize inefficiency in the "socialist production sector" while at the same time satisfying PDVSA's need to invest? I take it you're a smart young man, do your own numbers, and you'll see the current trend just won't work for them.

And the numbers I provided you are solid. Even if national food production grew, population grew too - so the real "growth" you've stated is at best 1 % in 10 years. Meanwhile, the poor in Venezuelan have got used to eating better, so where does this food come from? It's imported.

What Venezuela needs right now is a more realistic exchange rate, and more job creation. Real job creation can only come via investment, and that's paralyzed by lack of confidence in the government. They like to nationalize in a very erratic fashion.

[Peace Patriot]

17. Where would Venezuela's poor be, as to food, if the Chavez gov't HADN'T so dramatically increased

food production--which is what would have happened if rightwing "neoliberals" and Venezuela's fascist elite had been in charge?

The article didn't say it had solved the problem. It says what it says. They have dramatically increased food production, reached near export levels on some food products, have provided a lot of financial and technical support to farmers and are being responsive to the campesino movement on environment-friendly farming. Why is it that the Chavez government NEVER gets credit for ANYTHING, in our corpo-fascist press or from those with their minds set on being anti-Chavez? To me, this is so non-objective!

You keep talking about this one point--the exchange rate. That is not a plan. A good economic plan is multi-layered and encompasses all aspects of government and society. You might as well say that education is expendable--why fund it? You fund it because it is part of the plan--say, to have x number of engineers, and x number of scientists, and x number of health care workers and x number of police professionals trained by such and such a date, to provide the expertise and people-power for this project or that project. An economic plan is an intricate web. Pull one important thread out of it and you may so weaken the web that the whole thing is fraying and in tatters. You are saying that this one thread is going to fray on its own, and destroy the whole. But Venezuela's economic planners are not stupid. They have not only held that country together through ten years of rightwing- and Bushwack-instigated turmoil and threats, they did it very well, such that Venezuela landed on its feet when the Bushwhack shit hit the fan. They are now being quite conservative in what they project for next year--$40/barrel for oil (25% of their budget), 22% inflation, etc. What makes you think they don't know what they're doing? They have an incredible track record of economic growth and stability. They've been able to meet all their obligations and project doing so into the future. They say that demand for Venezuelan bonds is so big that they are may increase their bond sales by $1 billion. That may just be yak-yak. I don't know. (Governments do that--and you could say, in all fairness, that that is more of a duty than a lie--pushing gov't bonds and talking things up.) But I don't understand the basis of your lack of confidence in their ability to manage Venezuela's economy. China's doing the same thing, by the way--refusing to change their exchange rate. Their economic planners have their reasons; so do Venezuela's.

I guess only time will tell if your dire prediction comes true. Right now, it doesn't seem based on anything but theory--it isn't specific to Venezuela's economic plan and by itself isn't a plan. It is just an opinion, on one item, based on other examples, not Venezuela.

[ChangoLoa]

18. overrated exchange rate and constant high inflation means

that the domestic (agricultural) products are becoming more and more expensive compared to the foreign (agricultural) products. This leads to a fast increase of the imports which replace local products in the domestic market and a reduction of venezuelan exports, hence the stagnation of the agricultural sector. It shows 1% of accumulated growth per capita in 9 years. This is a very mediocre performance, it's like 0,08% growth a year. The exports decreased a lot as you could see in the stats.

The over-valuation of the bolivar has other side effects, especially when there are two exchange rates, like the over-estimation of the GDP.

I wonder how could anyone give credit to our government for this stagnation and exporter contraction in the agriculture. If it was the consequence of its policies, as you say, one should instead criticize it for this. It is a bit absurd, admit it, to show an evidently rather bad (except for ecological measures) situation as a great success. Propagandistic.

The chinese do the exact opposite thing. Their currency is underrated.

[Braulio]

20. Setting the record straight

Chavez didn't "dramatically increase food production". Food production increased at the same pace as the population size. The poor in Venezuela eat better now because oil prices have quadrupled since 1998, and Venezuela lives from oil exports. Evidently the government has also spread some of the money around to the poor, although it has done so in an inefficient fashion.

The best way to improve the lot of poor people in a country such as Venezuela is to provide them with quality health care, security, education, and jobs. With good jobs, they earn the money to eat well. Health care was recently declared a national crisis, the crime rate is worse, and quality employment hasn't increased. Furthermore, the fundamentals for the future don't look too good, because oil production is down, inflation is raging, and there's a looming electric energy crisis.

I want to clarify something: I really do wish individuals like Chavez would have better luck, and get better results, because I've spent all my life seeing injustice and starving people, and it's something humanity ought to improve upon. So if somebody sets out to improve social justice and improve the lot of the poor, then more power to them - and I'll do my best to help them.

The problem I see is the way they end up trying to get things done...they fail every time because they try to implement policies we know fail over and over again. Venezuela, Argentina, Cuba, they're just examples of how NOT to do it right. Lula da Silva in Brazil, on the other hand, is a good example to follow. So it would be good if you would pump up Lula rather than Chavez.

[Judi Lynn]

7. Thanks for pointing out this uncomprehended fact. They use a TON of articles

constantly from completely legitimate outside sources. Apparently a lot of people imagine they simply pull that material from their orifices, like the right-wing propagandists. Projection.

[spanza]

9. Well, when you talk about how Venezuela depends on food imports

showing you the evolution of... well... food imports (!) is quite an argument and certainly not a "random stat".

One of the writers of the article you're quoting is William Camacaro, who happens to be the co-founder of the Bolivarian Circle of New York, which IS an arm of the Venezuelan government.

[Braulio]

12. Wachowsky Brothers

The Wachowsky Brothers gave us "The Matrix" and "V". Both were about the way governments create false realities to befuddle their citizens.

George Orwell's "1984" has the same theme.

What I don't understand is, who do they think they're fooling? It's as if they were the band on the Titanic, playing on as the ship sinks.

[EFerrari]

15. So, now The Monthly Review is Ven government propaganda?

Hilarious.

[spanza]

16. William Camacaro, not Monthly Review

Is Venezuela more SELF-sufficient in agricultural production? ("self" meaning we import less of the food we eat than before... as in "The startling successes of Venezuela's food self-sufficiency program")

If agricultural production increased by 24% between 1998 and 2007 and agricultural imports increased by 121%, what does it mean?

[EFerrari]

19. If Camacaro and not Monthly Review, then your comment was a gratuitous

and empty objection.

And you might investigate your numbers because they are not only wrong but they are wrong across a static population quotient.

[spanza]

21. The numbers are right

I compared the evolution of local food production (+24%) and food imports (+121%) between 1998 and 2007. Both are expressed in totals (not per capita).

If you say they're wrong, it means that you have different numbers.

What are they and where do they come from?

[spanza]

22. Ok, I thought you were being serious for a minute

Ironical how you talk about an "empty objection"!

[wroberts189]

13. Absolutely excellent post. knr/nt

[Stevepol]

14. Thanks PP for a great post, a lot to think about. I for one think Chavez is doing a great job.