Agriculture in Venezuela

Agriculture in Venezuela has a much smaller share of the economy than in any other Latin American country. After the discovery of oil in Venezuela in the early 20th century to the 1940s, agriculture has 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). Since 1999, under the Bolivarian Revolution of President Hugo Chávez, agriculture has had a somewhat higher priority. Agriculture in Venezuela accounts for approximately 3% of GDP, 10% of the labor force, and at least a quarter of Venezuela's land area.

Venezuela imports most of its food, mainly from Colombia and the United States.

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% of GDP and employed 60% 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% of GDP, employed 13% of the labor force, and furnished barely 1% of total exports. Agriculture has continued to decline, accounting for about 5% of GDP and 10% of employment in 2004.Venezuela country profile
Library of Congress Federal Research Division (March 2005). ''This article incorporates text from this source, which is in the public domain.'' 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 (''El Trienio Adeco'', 1945–48), the Democratic Action government redistributed land which it said had been gained illicitly by members of previous governments,Alexander, Robert
"Nature and Progress of Agrarian Reform in Latin America."
''The Journal of Economic History''. Vol. 23, No. 4 (Dec., 1963), pp 559-573. 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 Pérez Jiménez. 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

Venezuela's present-day agriculture is characterized by inefficiency and low investment, with 70% of agricultural land owned by 3% 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. 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.

The government has confiscated and expropriated much of the industry . State intervention has seriously damaged the agricultural sector , and Venezuela imports most of its food. There are persistent shortages of common foodstuffs. The government blames "hoarders" and "speculators" for food shortages.

The government created Misión Agro-Venezuela to support small and medium farm production of the basic foods most commonly consumed in the country.

Production

Venezuela produced in 2019:

* 4.3 million tons of sugarcane;
* 1.9 million tons of maize;
* 1.4 million tons of banana;
* 760 thousand tons of rice;
* 485 thousand tons of pineapple;
* 477 thousand tons of potato;
* 435 thousand tons of palm oil;
* 421 thousand tons of cassava;
* 382 thousand tons of orange;
* 225 thousand tons of watermelon;
* 199 thousand tons of papaya;
* 194 thousand tons of melon;
* 182 thousand tons of tomatoes;
* 155 thousand tons of tangerine;
* 153 thousand tons of coconut;
* 135 thousand tons of avocado;
* 102 thousand tons of mango (including mangosteen and guava);
* 56 thousand tons of coffee;

In addition to smaller productions of other agricultural products. Due to internal economic and political problems, sugar cane production dropped from 7.3 million tons in 2012 to 3.6 million in 2016. Corn production dropped from 2.3 million tons in 2014 to 1, 2 million in 2017. Rice fell from 1.15 million tons in 2014 to 498 thousand tons in 2016. Venezuela production , by FAO

References

Further reading

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