Why Has The Venezuelan Food Sovereignty Experiment Been Unsuccessful?

Candidate Number: 109887
Why Has The Venezuelan Food Sovereignty

Experiment Been Unsuccessful?
Introduction
With the rise of the Third Food Regime and neoliberalism,
world markets have become increasingly unfavourable to
developing countries and peasant agriculture. This period has seen
an accelerated spread of capitalism and global financialisation of
agriculture that has reinforced the core-periphery divide (Amin,
2001). In reaction to this, La Via Campesina has emerged as a
horizontal force that represents the peasant farmers of the world,
promoting rights and opposing adverse terms of trade. La Via
Campesina introduced the concept of Food Sovereignty (FS) to
promote more fair terms of trade and local democratic control of
food as opposed to the neoliberal food security model. FS has
consequently been celebrated as a progressive movement that
provides a promising equitable and environmentally friendly future
for agriculture.
However, equally there has been some thought-provoking
criticism of FS as to whether it is a practical alternative to the
current food system. This mainly centres on the population question,
the peasant question and how the rural-urban gap can be addressed
whilst FS ideals are realised. This takes us back to the debates
between Chayanov and Lenin about the nature of peasant
agricultural production and class dynamics as well as polemics
about sovereignty and how it functions on different scales. These
perspectives have different implications for the role of the state and
the mode of agrarian production. With the advent of the pink tide in
Latin America, FS has been instituted into many government
policies.

Venezuela as an oil exporting country has been well
integrated into the world market and in the past few decades has
been dependent on imports for the vast majority of its food. This
huge insecurity prompted the Chavez administration to adopt FS
into its political agenda, making it the first ever country to do so.
There has supposedly been a move towards endogenous
production and self-sufficiency in national production (Ellner, 2011:
250-251). The government has introduced land reform with a
cooperative farming system and has challenged the agroindustry
through increased regulation and recently expropriation. However,
the new system has not proven to be overly successful as largescale food shortages continue to occur and agricultural productivity
has yet to improve (Levingston, 2014; Howard-Hassman, 2014). This
is mainly because of a polarisation of Venezuelan society and a
backlash by the business and landed oligarchies to the Bolivarian
project. This backlash entails blocking reforms and waging an
economic war on the government through the food sector, which
has jeopardised the productivity of agriculture and peoples access
to food. Despite a slightly expanded area of harvested land, there
has not been a significant increase in agricultural production except
for cereals (Bueno, 2012; also see figure 1). Venezuela was
previously self-sufficient and even exported coffee, cotton and corn
but now there are regular shortages of these goods and often they
have to be imported in (Nez, 2006). According to the USDA (2015)
even with restricted access to dollars for imports the USA still
provides around a third of Venezuelas imports. Although cereal
production levels have increased, especially corn production, the US
is the number one exporter of corn to Venezuela (ibid).
Approximately a third of yellow corn for animal feed will be GM corn
(Fitting, 2006: 17) so Venezuela is still heavily subordinated to the
new Food Regime by indirectly supporting the biotechnology trade.

Crop
Sugar
Cane
Tabacco
1998
2000
2002
2004
2008*
2010**
2012**
2013**
12.334
8.755
6.504
3.677
5.035
5.000
3.179
4.772
5.559
1.005.00
723.412 821.070
7
0
0
1.689.55 1.392.02 2.126.25 2.336.83 2.995.71 2.496.20 1.752.51 2.247.04
Rice
701.168 676.775 668.164 974.091
Corn
983.121
Sorghum
2006
8.111.02 8.831.52 8.525.81 8.814.24 9.322.93 9.448.16 9.107.07 6.689.66 7.339.63
1.122.80 1.360.65
448.871 581.526 508.652 563.345 584.376 376.959 472.630 382.959 401.312
Figure 1: Volume of Production per tonne (Fedeagro, 2015)

Domestic production is nowhere near satisfying growing
consumption and the nation remains dependent on imports for
approximately 70% of its food (USDA, 2015: 2), which is similar to
pre-Chavez years. However, in the 15 years before Chavez, import
expenditure fluctuated around $1.2 million, but is now well over $4
million (Parker, 2008: 137). This in part is due to a massive growth
in national consumption and higher prices on the world market.
Food consumption has risen 80% since 1999 (Mallet-Outtrim, 2013).
The emancipation of a huge proportion of the urban masses from
extreme poverty has caused a massive increase in food demand
(Carlson, 2013). Rising living standards due to a new minimum wage
and social programmes combined with subsidised goods have
allowed people who previously lived on next to nothing to be able to
afford basic goods.
Throughout this essay I aim to demonstrate how and why FS
has failed in Venezuela up until now, but I am not suggesting that FS
does not work as an agrarian model. First, I shall contextualise the
paper by briefly explaining the Third Food Regime and the
subsequent rise of FS. Secondly, I shall cover some of the polemics
around the feasibility of FS as a practical alternative on a large
scale, which to some extent can explain the failure of FS in
Venezuela. Finally, I shall turn to the situation in Venezuela, outlining

the policies the government has taken and the main obstacles it has
encountered that ultimately have led to the failure of FS.
Literature Review
Harriet Friedmann (1987) argues that globalisation and the
spread of capitalism through imperialism has led to the
development of a series of different international Food Regimes. The
first food regime emerged out of British colonialism and its
hegemony over the world market. The Second Global Food Regime
was spurred on by the Green Revolution and began after WWII with
the US food aid programme for Europe and the Third World
(Friedmann, 1982). Recently many academics have declared the
emergence of a Third Food Regime (Otero & Pechlaner, 2008). This
regime is characterised by neoliberal restructuring, evolving
regulatory structures, the rise of TNCs and the 2nd Green Revolution
of biotechnology (Burch & Lawrence, 2009). The financialisation of
agriculture and capitals (Harvey, 2003: 137) accumulation by
dispossession have caused depeasantisation (Araghi, 1995) and the
subjection of peasants to worse terms of trade. Hobsbawm (1994,
289) claimed that the reconfiguration of contemporary capitalism
will inevitably lead to the death of the peasantry.
Until the 1994 Uruguay Round of GATT, agricultural products
were left out of the trade agreements. After a protectionist period,
Europe and the USA began to produce surplus food due to the high
yields of the Green Revolution (Espinoza, 2000). They consequently
pushed for the introduction of agriculture into GATT in 1994 (Correa,
2000: 3), creating the WTO. The Uruguay Round of GATT resulted in
the significant deregulation and liberalisation of agriculture
worldwide. This neoliberal structural adjustment, enforcing lower
tariffs and subsidies, forced developing countries and peasant
farmers to compete with cheap mass-produced and subsidised food

from the USA and Europe, resulting in many farmers migrating to
the cities. The capital and input-intensive (chemicals, fertilizers,
hybrid seeds, machinery etc.) agriculture of the Green Revolution
gave the core-industrialised countries an advantage in the world
market and allowed them to become the new agro-exporters. Griffin
(1974) outlined how factor prices and the technical change of the
Green Revolution were capital intensive and biased to wealthier
groups and core countries, effectively increasing disparities globally
between core and periphery countries but also within states.
This gave rise to corporate industrialised agriculture and the
domination of the world food market by TNCs and Food Empires
(Ploeg, 2007: 6). In tandem with these transformations, over the
past 20 years there have been a series of more than a thousand
mergers and acquisitions of seed companies by petrochemical and
pharmaceutical MNCs. These MNCs now have a global monopoly
over agricultural inputs as they produce both agrochemicals and
seeds (Lapp & Bailey, 1999: 52). The 1994 Uruguay Round also
enforced stricter intellectual property rights, which allow companies
to patent gene sequences and already existing fauna, which Shiva
(1993, 117) claims is leading to a patenting race, the reproduction
of neo-colonial global markets and a renewed economic
displacement of small farmers who cannot compete with the yields
of GMOs. The seed and biotech industries are now concentrated in
the hands of five companies, Monsanto, Aventis/Bayer, Dupont
Pioneer, Syngenta and Dow. The monopolisation of this industry has
led to an increasing dependence by small farmers on seeds and
chemicals from these agrochemical companies. The renewal of
capital-intensive agriculture in the form of biotechnology is seen by
De la Perriere and Seuret as the programmed elimination of
millions of farmers (2000, 8). The monopolisation of the
agrochemical industry has even led to farming contracts, where
farmers are only allowed to buy their seeds and inputs from

companies like Monsanto. Schubert et al (2011) argue that the
enforcement of patents and the growing propertisation of
agriculture through GMOs are leading to the re-feudalisation of
farmers.
The development of these problems within the current Food
Regime culminated in the Food Crisis of 2007-2008 (McMichael,
2009). The neoliberal restructuring of the global food system and
the monopoly of TNCs in food production has caused a significant
dependency on the world market by the global population. This
coupled with massive speculation on grains, hoarding and
manipulation of prices by the agri-food corporations caused food
prices to shoot up almost overnight (Rosset, 2009). Mexicans could
not afford corn, their staple food (Mestries, 2009), nor could Haitians
afford rice and the rest of the world suffered in a similar way.
La Va Campesina movement emerged in the 1990s as a
response to the emerging Food Regime and declining terms of trade
for peasant farmers across the globe. It initiated the term Food
Sovereignty (FS) to promote small-scale farmers rights, fair trade
and sustainable farming. FS in the words of Va Campesina is the
right of people to healthy and culturally appropriate food produced
through sustainable methods and their right to define their own food
and agriculture systems It puts the aspirations, needs and
livelihoods of those who produce, distribute and consume food at
the heart of food systems and policies rather than the demands of
markets and corporations (Vacampesina, 2015). Some of the
central tenets of FS are autonomy, local agroecology and traditional
methods of farming that have been passed down through
generations. Another FS demand is Direct Democracy and the
decentralisation of decision-making to the people who are affected
the most, the peasants (Wittman et al, 2010). This is why there is no
policy-making secretariat and no strict FS design (Patel, 2009: 669).

They also fight for agrarian reform and official land rights, which in
many countries small-scale farmers do not have. FS is essentially an
anti-systemic force from below, resisting the contemporary
reshuffling of the global agrarian system at the state and inter-state
level.
A Question of Feasibility
FS is celebrated as an empowering movement and an
alternative to the current exploitative and unfair food system.
However, there has been growing concern about the feasibility of FS
as a real alternative on a large scale. Bernstein (2014) has been
critical of FS, primarily questioning its capacity for large-scale
production, the existence and class differentiation of peasants and
the downstream aspect (how to connect farmers to markets fairly).
He doubts whether sustainable and local production is capable of
satisfying the needs of an exponentially growing urban population.
Historically, the Malthusian question has tested many an academic
and resulted in very diverging opinions. The only positive opinions
like those of Boserupe and Ricardo stress the role of technology.
Clearly, most recent technological advancements have been
capitalist and stimulated by fossil fuels. The question is whether
expanding information networks from below and advances in
agroecology, can substitute for these productive levels. McMichael
has responded, making the point that although FS might not provide
a clear agrarian model as an alternative, but equally the current
corporate food regime feeds the world a diet of food insecurity
(2014: 197). He asserts that peasants have provided enough food
for the world in the past and today 70% of the worlds food is still
produced by small farmers (ETC, 2009).
The debate on peasant productivity takes us back to the
debate between Lenin and Chayanov. Lenin saw peasants as

embryonic capitalists that were central to the development of
capitalism. He emphasised class differentiation between peasants,
noting how rich peasants or proto-capitalists often hire poor
peasants converting them into semi-proletarians (Bernstein, 2009).
Chayanov on the other hand theorised the peasant economy, an
economy that functions by its own logic and inherently excludes the
capitalist imperative of accumulation. He contended that peasant
households are self-sufficient, rationally reacting to dependentworker ratios and not producing surplus (ibid). Households that have
more children or elderly than workers will inevitably increase their
self-exploitation and become more productive, often by renting
more land, hiring labour or buying more livestock to sustain their
families. Therefore, for Chayanov the peasant economy works by
the logic of self-reproduction rather than the profit-driven logic that
Lenin implied. Families would go through cycles of wealth and
poverty in accordance with their worker-dependent dynamics. This is
why Chayanov defended rich peasants or Kulaks unlike Lenin who
saw them as the capitalist enemy. If the theory of the peasant
household remains true then perhaps the FS peasant way is not a
reliable agrarian alternative, as it would not sustain the growing
population.
However, Chayanov like Lenin advocated the creation of
peasant cooperatives to overcome the production limits of peasant
farming. Chayanov imagined small peasants, cooperatives and a
supportive state working together (Bernstein, 2009: 63). This would
of course require land reform and the distribution of (then feudal)
land to the peasants and cooperatives. He theorised a multi-level
cooperative movement and a cooperative of cooperatives,
facilitated by the state but simultaneously run from below
(Chayanov, 1991: 229). Kautsky (1988: 407) comparably saw
cooperatives as a way in which development could be achieved

without the exploitation of capitalism. The cooperative system could
provide a feasible option for production of scale.
Agroecology is perceived as a sustainable and bottom-up
approach to food production. It generates technological and energy
sovereignty due to its innovative use of natural and local resources
permitting autonomy from external inputs (Altieri & Toledo, 2011).
Agroecology relies on innovation and the circulation of information
and farming techniques that have been passed down through
generations or developed by contemporary farmers. In Cuba,
because of the US trade embargo the principal source of food
imports and agri-inputs was the Soviet Union (Rosset et al, 2011).
With the fall of the USSR, Cuba could no longer import anything
meaning that agriculture had to be reformed. State farmland was
redistributed to families and cooperatives as they were more flexible
to the absence of agri-inputs and adjusted well to agroecology. The
Campesino-a-Campesino (CAC) movement was set up in 2000,
which is a horizontal national network of farmers that share
information to improve agroecology (ibid). Innovative farmers are
appointed by their peers to travel to other cooperatives and family
farms to disseminate new agroecological techniques. Additionally,
Cuba has advocated urban farming on a large-scale. As a result,
Cubas agriculture has been revitalised and Cuba remains
predominantly self-sufficient. This demonstrates how agroecology,
cooperatives and FS policies could work to sustain a population.
Chayanovs theory of the peasant economy is no longer very
relevant because it was theorised in a very different period in rural
Russia and many things have changed. As contemporary theories of
Food Regimes suggest, the reality today is that most farmers are
incorporated into the world market in some way or another and are
not exempt from capitalist relations. Bernstein (2014) sides with
Lenin also questioning the existence of the peasantry as a single

homogeneous and united class and criticises the lack of class
differentiation of the FS movement. Lenins argument of class
differentiation is very relevant today. This is not to say that all
peasants cannot be subsistence farmers; just that increasingly
subsistence farming untouched by capitalism is disappearing
rapidly. Bernstein (ibid) implies that FS is a contemporary agrarian
populism that celebrates the peasantry and traditional ways of life
as capitals other, when the pure peasant way of life no longer
truly exists. Llamb (1988) similarly argues that peasant farming is
not inherently superior to any other forms of capitalist production as
peasants are actually fully integrated into the capitalist system as
fully-fledged (but petty) commodity producers and are often
subordinated to the market relations of big agroindustrial
enterprises. Studies of Mexican campesinos show that most work on
their farms for part of the year and participate in seasonal labour for
the rest of the year or increasingly migrate for work and so are not
pure subsistence farmers (Carro-Ripalda & Astier, 2014). Many of
the poor peasantry are therefore conventional farmers or semiproletarians and not alternative in any way. Bernstein (2014) states
that many of the sustainable farmers of FS are emblematic
instances, like those from the Central American Highlands, and do
not represent the average peasant farmer. According to Lenin there
are several different classes of peasants depending on the
correlation between family and hired labour. There are proletarian,
semi-proletarian and capitalist peasants, which means that the
peasantry ceases to be a unified class (USSR, 2015). This would
suggest that the FS promotion of the peasant way is not feasible
because peasants do not truly exist due to these class divides and
subordination to the new owners of the means of production, the
agroindustrial companies.
On the other hand, McMichael (2014) contends that FS is not a
movement celebrating pre-capitalist classes but is an evolving

response and the politicisation of the margins (McMichael, 2006:
415) that has emerged out of the inequalities and injustices of the
new Food Regime. Kay and Lodhi state that it is not about
recovering a mythical peasant past; rather it is about politicising the
current agrarian crisis (2009: 295). FS for McMichael is a
movement, mobilising a class that occurs within capitalist relations
of subjection but refuses to accept capitalist terms of subjection
(2014, 198). Likewise, Edelman (2009) implied that peasant is a
political category not an analytical one. Ploeg (2007: 8) like
Chayanov believes that peasants, because of their innate autonomy
from external inputs and capitalism, are resilient to economic crises
that affect capitalist agriculture. She suggests that the recent
agrarian crisis is leading to a resurgence of the peasantry. Contrary
to claims of depeasantisation small farmers in Latina America have
supposedly grown in population by 220 million from 1990-1999
(Toledo & Barrera-Bassols, 2008). Still, this does not engage with the
fact that many peasants are not subsistence farmers but
conventional petty-commodity producers.
Contrary to Chayanovs peasant economy, Kay (2002) argues
that small farmers do not need any incentive to increase their
production. Equally for Kay, the state holds a central role in
reforming agriculture and boosting production, but in order to
subsidise industrialisation. By ensuring a sufficient area of land to
each farmer through land reform, agricultural productivity should
increase. However, Kay suggests that the absence of landlords is
key for successful land reform (ibid). This made reforms easy in
South Korea unlike similar reforms in Latin America where the
landed oligarchy resisted reform. Also, the state supported reforms
with subsidised inputs, credits, supportive institutions and protected
markets. This was of course supported financially by the USA as
well, in its efforts to curb communist conversion. Evidently FS does
not advocate the use of unsustainable agricultural inputs but the

idea of small farmers increasing their production through increased
self-exploitation could be promising.
If FS provides a productive agroecology model, Bernstein
(2014) asks how surplus would arrive to the urban consumer whilst
keeping prices cheap and paying fair prices to producers. Either FS
movements would have to develop their own systems of transport
and infrastructure through cooperation from below, or a sympathetic
state would be necessary to subsidise produce and provide the
infrastructure to connect the countryside and cities. In most cases
the state is the enemy that advocates neoliberal policies but if it
does adopt FS, movements have to resist being coopted. One of the
big limitations for this downstream question is the agri-food
industry, which has a monopoly on the processing and distribution
of food and can manipulate market prices. Therefore, the
agroindustrial complex has to be confronted through regulation. The
state seems to be a central instrument for confronting Food Empires
and the downstream question. Ellis stated that the state can
override or substitute for market forces (1993: 57), embedding the
market in society in the Polanyian sense.
Then there is the question of sovereignty itself, which is built
on a perennial source of theoretical confusion (Bartelson, 1995:
12) due to its parallel internal and external dimensions. Sovereignty
requires boundaries and depends on scale, which is relational.
Schiavoni (2015) proposes the idea of competing sovereignties on
different scales. There are often tensions between different
sovereign food systems on global, national and local scales. Iles and
Montenegro (2013) suggest that scale-sovereignty gaps can be
addressed by polycentric governance systems, much like
Chayanovs multi-level cooperatives, that create interdependence
and cooperation. Likewise, Patel (2009: 668) affirms that the state
has a key role in FS but as a decentred state. The different actors

and institutions have to cooperate from above and below
simultaneously.
Case Study: The Inherited System of Food Insecurity in

Venezuela
Venezuela as an ex-slave state and agroexporter has
historically been well integrated into the world market. Latifundios
(plantations) dominated Venezuelas economy and agriculture until
the 20th CE rise of the enclave oil industry. Oil exploitation brought
with it many of the problems associated with the resource curse
including Dutch disease (Vasquez, 2010). Dutch disease is the
decline of other economic sectors whilst oil brings in foreign capital,
raising the real exchange rate and making imports cheap (Ross,
2012: 49; Humphreys et al, 2007: 5). In Venezuela, this meant the
gradual disappearance of agriculture as landowners turned to the oil
industry and an increased dependence on the world market for food.
There was a mass exodus from the countryside as work was
eliminated and peasants were thrown off the land eventually leading
to Venezuela becoming the most urbanised country in Latin America
(Wilpert, 2006). With the quadrupling of oil prices in 1973, oil
revenues rocketed and made imports even cheaper, accelerating
the decline in agriculture and dependence on imports (Mahler,
2011). After the drop in oil prices in the 80s and the US Volcker
interest rate hikes on petro-dollar loans (Rajan, 2011), the country
experienced an economic shock and was forced into neoliberal
restructuring by international institutions. In parallel, Venezuelas
food industry became increasingly concentrated in the hands of a
few companies, experiencing intense transnationalisation and
industrialisation. Among many transnational mergers and
acquisitions, Cargill acquired the company Laurak, which was 8% of
the agri-food market and Unilever acquired Facecagra, another
11.3% (Espinoza, 2002: 115). Although the agroindustrial sector

grew, food production did not, and imports grew exponentially
(Espinoza, 2009: 135). Higher and cheaper imports did not mean
cheaper prices but huge profits for the TNCs (Hernandez et al, 1988:
87). Anti-government and neoliberal sentiment led to the Caracazo
riots and the rise of Chavez in 1998 (Gott, 2011). As US regional
power faltered leftist governments were elected in Latin America
leading Sader (Roberts, 2012) to claim the transition of Latin
America from being a neoliberal paradise to a neoliberal oasis.
Venezuela was the first of these progressive governments and since
inheriting such an unstable food system, was the first country to
adopt FS into its policies.
The enclave oil industry continues to cause huge structural
disadvantages for FS. Rosser (2007) notes that of the many oilextracting developing countries, Indonesia is one of the only nations
to sustain its agriculture. Most countries develop a double economy,
with the two sectors of oil and agriculture functioning
antagonistically. Inflation is one of the main oil-related problems. In
Venezuela inflation has recently increased to 60-70% jeopardising
peoples access to cheap good food (Tradingeconomics.com, 2015).
Moreover, Venezuela has a dysfunctional exchange rate system
(Weisbrot, 2014) because the bolivar is overvalued, making imports
even more artificially cheap and exports expensive. This is counterintuitive for agriculture as it forces domestic production to compete
with cheap foreign products. As a result of the overvalued bolivar
there is a black market of US dollars. The dual exchange rate of the
bolivar with rates differing for imports on essential and nonessential goods is part of the problem. Monetarists and mainstream
economists call for an end to price controls and stress inflation as
the causes of food shortages, but this conceals the role of capital
strikes and the economic conflict (Levingston, 2014).

When Chavez was elected he made sweeping reforms that
explicitly reflected FS objectives. The oil Company PDVSA was once
again brought fully under government control and oil contracts were
renegotiated raising government revenues significantly (Hogenboom
and Fernndez, 2009). This deepened extractivism allowed the
government to finance its many welfare schemes and social
programmes. It implemented an experimental FS project, trying
many different policies in order to recover agriculture. The
Bolivarian revolution initiated land reform and the development of
cooperatives; the state enforced price controls on food, increased
agricultural funding and institutional support, and has created a
state-run food chain and supermarket. However, most of these
changes require funding from the renewed neo-extractivism, which
is not sustainable (Gudynas, 2009). Ellner (2011) claims that the
government has no planned model of development but has
gradually become more radical through several different stages in
response to opposition offensives. Initially Chavez stated that the
government would make a strategic alliance with business, but after
the coup attempt in 2002, the oil walkout and a general offensive
against the government by the business elite, he reacted more
aggressively, leading to an economic war. Although challenging
agribusiness, the conflict has actually been counter-productive and
not aided the FS goals of access to food and an autonomous
productive agriculture.
Failed Land Reforms and Opposition From The Latifundio

Oligarchy
Venezuela has inherited a feudal distribution of land mixed
with pockets of capital-intensive agroindustry and a very small
population of peasants. In 1997 5% of landowners possessed 75% of
the land (Schiavoni, 2014: 7). Chavez confronted this problem and
attempted to improve agriculture by implementing land reform,

which initially was very promising. Nonetheless, it has failed to
produce big transformations. This is principally because of
opposition from the landed oligarchy but also weak institutions. The
reformed 1999 constitution stated that latifundios were contrary to
the interests of the nation under the article 306. The expanse of
unused latifundio land is now eligible for the state to transform into
productive economic units. In 2001 Chavez introduced the Land
reform law stating that low quality idle land of over 5,000 hectares
or 100 hectares of high quality idle land is eligible to be
expropriated with compensation and redistributed by the
government (Schiavoni and Camacaro, 2009). Anyone between the
ages of 18-25 may apply for a plot of land. After three years of
productive cultivation they may receive full ownership of the land.
This was compared with the Homestead Act that Lincoln
implemented in the USA, which ran on almost identical principles
(Delong, 2005). Similarly cooperatives can apply for land. There are
several institutions that have been set up to help the process of repeasantisation such as INTI and INDER, which between them
administer land titles and provide agricultural infrastructure, credit
and training for new farmers (Wilpert, 2006). Under the Return to
the countryside program, by the end of 2004 there had been 2
million hectares of state land redistributed and by 2009 at least 2.7
million hectares of latifundio were returned to productivity
(Schiavoni and Camacaro, 2009: 133).
There has been much criticism of the land reforms, primarily
by economists. Under article 89 peasants are allowed to occupy
land that is eligible for expropriation before they receive official
rights to expropriate it, much like the MST process. As a result many
productive private farms have been expropriated reducing domestic
production. Furthermore, due to the long process affirming historical
land titles, the government has increasingly taken to declaring land
titles illegal and expropriating without compensation, even for

productive properties (Howard-Hassman, 2013). Howard-Hassman
(2013: 15) criticises this undermining of private property as many
productive farms and large-scale food producers are being invaded
or feel threatened and are disinvesting in agriculture.
Although there has been land reform, it has been very limited.
As Kay argued, it is much easier to reform agriculture without the
existence of landlords. Unlike recent reforms in Cuba and South
Korea, the latifundio owners and business elites have strongly
resisted land reform in Venezuela through legal and illegal means.
There has been legal pressure to halt reforms in government but
also increased insecurity for peasant farmers. The landed oligarchies
have reacted violently to occupying peasants. By 2005 more than
130 campesinos had been murdered by private death squads hired
by the landed elite (Zamora, 2005). Also, Fedenagas the
agroindustry association has been very successful in reversing
reforms as well. As a result there has not been a substantial process
of re-peasantisation. If Venezuela is to achieve a FS-style food
system then a primarily urban population is not desirable. Today
only 11% of the population live in rural areas (World Bank, 2015).
Clearly, Bernsteins problem of the existence of the peasantry is
quite relevant here. How can a nation of city dwellers provide a
peasant-based agroecology food system? There needs to be a
significant speeding up of the land reform process and ruralisation.
Furthermore, peasant organisations have argued that the land
reform institutions and the legal framework are too weak and
inefficient. Wilpert (2006: 260) similarly argues that peasant unions
and organisations are not strong enough to make their demands
heard or participate fully in the land reform process.
Unproductive Cooperatives

The majority of the new farms created through the Return to
the Countryside program are cooperatives. The productivity of
these cooperatives is abysmal compared to the financial investment
by the government into them and their coexisting infrastructure.
Since the Chavista reforms more than 69,231 cooperatives have
emerged (Clark, 2010: 148) and funding for agriculture has risen
from $164 million to $7.6 billion (Schiavoni and Camacaro, 2009:
134). In many senses this agricultural model reflects what Chayanov
theorised, a combination of a supportive state, cooperatives and
small farmers. The state has made it easy for farmers to gain access
to credit and has invested unprecedented amounts in agriculture.
There is 0% tax for agricultural produce and protection against
imports of domestically produced food commodities like corn,
sorghum and sugar (Parker, 2008: 132). There now exist some very
productive and efficient cooperatives like El Maizal, which is
comprised of 7,000 people and produces and processes 2500kg of
corn a year with its own flour factory (Dutka, 2014). There are
various other schemes like the Campo Adentro program modelled on
the Cuban program whereby farmers exchange information and
Cuban agronomists travel the country helping to develop more
productive farms (Schiavoni, 2009: 134). In 2008 the government
introduced laws mandating the phasing out of agri-inputs and
declared agrecology the basis of Venezuelan agriculture (ibid: 136137).
Nevertheless, the majority of the cooperatives have proved to
be extremely inefficient or short-lived because of a combination of
mismanagement and adverse class dynamics. Page (2010: 263)
argues that many farmers are only participating to gain access to
government resources and are seeking their own individual
interests, like Lenins proto-capitalists. Moreover, many cooperatives
are not established prior to acquiring land, which subsequently
causes organisational problems and often a lack of farming

experience. The ease of access to government credit and the Plan
Zero Debt whereby start-up farmers debt is cancelled has arguably
led to a careless management of resources in cooperatives.
Additionally, government institutions are considered inefficient;
many peasants complain that they receive their credit after sowing
season, which renders the credit useless (Ojeda, 2014). Cooperative
systems have worked in Cuba but in Venezuela there are often too
many people for the area of land given, so producing surplus is
difficult as farmers struggle to produce enough for the cooperative
workers alone (Parker, 2013). This is a knock-on effect of the failed
land reforms. Furthermore, many cooperative farmers cannot
survive solely on cooperative labour but are semi-proletarian,
simultaneously labouring in other jobs (ibid: 134-135). This
inevitably affects the efficiency of the cooperatives, as cooperative
production may not be the priority. This is exactly the problem that
Lenin and Bernsteins class differentiation poses to FS. The peasant
class is semi-proletarian and therefore not completely capable of
providing a united and productive workforce.
Conflict with The Agroindustrial Complex: Exacerbating Food

Shortages
FS is constructed in opposition to the Food Regime. In order to
construct FS the agri-food industry must be tackled, which is what
the Bolivarian state is doing. Although this is what FS is about, in
reality the change in the mode of production and the conflict with
the agri-food industry has been very detrimental to national food
self sufficiency. The question is whether destroying agroindustrial
production is desirable whilst cooperative production cannot sustain
the population. Since the coup attempt in 2002 there has been an
escalating power-struggle between the state and the agri-food
industry, resulting in regular food shortages. The government like
various past Venezuelan governments is regulating the market more

strictly and has put many basic goods under price controls to
contain inflation and guarantee affordable prices for the population
(Weisbrot, 2008). Originally, between 2002-2006 there were national
meetings to negotiate price controls involving the agroindustry,
producers and the government; but this did not work and was
abandoned (Parker, 2013). Access to dollars and import permits
have been restricted allowing the government to control imports
more strictly. Increasingly more products have been put under price
controls. Consequently, there is a strong union of agro-industrial
enterprises that oppose these policy changes and the undermining
of private property.
During the coup and the oil walkout, there were serious food
shortages and blackouts because many business elites conspired
against the government in support of the opposition. As electricity
companies have been put under government control blackouts have
become uncommon (Gott, 2011). Nevertheless, food shortages have
continued to occur with the state blaming the business sector and
mainstream economists blaming the state. Ellner (2011) suggests
that the opposition and big businesses have politically engineered
food shortages, as the worst shortages happen to coincide with the
electoral calendar. There have been increased reports of food
hoarding by big companies and a growing illegal food trafficking
trade over the Columbian border (Robertson, 2013). Rosales (2013)
claims that the business elite and agri-food companies have waged
war on the Venezuelan economy and are purposefully sabotaging
the food industry; he notes that halfway through 2013 over 40,000
tonnes of hoarded food had been seized by the government. On the
other hand, mainstream economists claim that price controls are
making business unprofitable and forcing many food companies out
of business, leading them to the rational hoarding of food and
disinvestment in the food industry (Howard-Hassman, 2013).

In 2008 Chavez enacted 5 laws by decree such as the Organic
Law of Security and FS that allows the government to intervene in
the property of food networks in response to food shortages (Parker,
2008). The government has increasingly expropriated big and small
companies for failing to comply with regulations. This has led to a
transformation in property relations because production is now
social property, accountable to the population rather than profit
(Beauregard and Gottlieb, 2009: 39). If companies are not fulfilling
the function of social production and abiding by regulations then
they get expropriated. In 2010, a glassmaking factory Owens-Illinois
affiliates, AgroIslena and various other strategic companies that
provide Polar with key packaging inputs were expropriated (Reardon,
2010). These expropriations were orchestrated in order to influence
and have more bargaining power with Polar, the biggest
supermarket. Similar instances of expropriations have been reported
such as the expropriation of three rice-processing plants owned by
Cargill and Polar (Beauregard and Gottlieb, 2009) (Hill, 2005).
However, food shortages continue to occur. Many of the
expropriations have occurred to productive domestic sectors of the
agri-food industry. This has drawn criticism even from within the
Bolivarian ranks because many of the government takeovers have
been very inefficient, producing well below capacity (HowardHassman, 2013). Ellner (2011) explained that many companies
avoid selling to supermarkets at controlled prices by selling products
at substantially higher prices to middlemen, who in turn sell them to
street pedlars, creating a black market for food. This is the reason
why supermarkets are often empty. Similarly, Howard-Hassman
(2013; 8) indicates that as certain products are put on price
controls, companies charge higher for other products to compensate
for their losses. He contends that although the government means
well, it is perpetuating a vicious cycle; the more goods that are put
under price controls, the higher the prices are on the black market,

more shortages occur and consequently the government puts more
products under price controls. In 2008 there was a steep drop in
production at the same time as the laws for expropriation were
initiated (Rodriguez, 2008: 5), although this did occur at the same
time as oil prices dropped. The lack of access to dollars for imports
also means that domestic shortages cannot be mitigated by
imports.
The Downstream Answer

On a more positive note, I suggest the state has overcome
some of the problems associated with the downstream question,
sovereignty and the urban-rural gap. The state has set up its own
supermarket Mercal and distributing network PDVAL to provide up to
50% subsidised food. By 2006 there were 15,726 Mercal food stores
that benefit around half of the population (Weisbrot, 2008: 11-12).
This in theory confronts the urban-rural gap and the problem of
providing cheap food and paying fair wages to peasants. These
networks allow the government to bypass middlemen and TNCs,
who make profits and raise prices of basic products. Therefore, they
can challenge the agro-industrial complex and its monopoly on the
food market provided that they have a steady production and supply
of food. In addition, the state has set up the Casas de Alimentacin,
which are community run kitchens, supplied by the state that feed
the poorest sectors of society and benefitting 900,000 people
(Schiavoni, 2014: 22-23). Despite the decline in productivity in
various sectors of agriculture and increased shortages, the
population has experienced highly improved nutrition, health and
alleviation of poverty since the Chavista reforms. From 1999 to 2010
the number of undernourished people fell from 4 million to 1 million
(Howard-Hassman, 2013: 9). But this is more down to improved
economic distribution of the oil rent by the government than solving

the agrarian question. People are not starving but this is because
there are more imports not because of FS.
Another aspect of the Bolivarian revolution that is congruent
with the values of FS is the supposed devolution of power and
participatory democracy. Under the article 184 of the constitution,
all over the country community councils have been set up to make
politics more inclusive. Urban councils involve 200-400 families and
rural councils at least 20 families. In 2009 there were reportedly
25,000 councils (Beauregard and Gottlieb, 2009: 34). These councils
feed to the central government but have control over local issues
and can apply for funds for their own projects. Schiavoni (2014)
argues that these councils can act to connect the countryside to the
cities and make FS a participatory process as the councils have the
responsibility to manage their own food and resources. This
simultaneously confronts the rural-urban gap, and the lack of
coherence between agriculture and the urban world. She contends
that the establishment of the councils has led to people taking their
initiative and developing links between the countryside and the
cities. One such case is the urban community El Panal, where
residents run a rice processing plant and were aided by the peasant
movement Jirajara to obtain land on which they can now cultivate
their own rice (ibid: 26). The councils also engage with the question
of competing sovereignties by contributing to a more polycentric
governance system as Iles and Montenegro suggested.
Conclusion
Venezuelas project of FS has demonstrated some of the
problems that academics have noted in the FS movement. As an
experimental project, FS in Venezuela is in theory a very progressive
model of agrarian development. However, so far it has encountered
many problems. Food production has not improved to any significant

degree whilst consumption and imports have exponentially
increased. This highlights Bernsteins concern about the Malthusian
question and FSs ability to address it. Having said that, the FS
policies implemented in Venezuela have not been efficiently
executed nor their goals completely accomplished due to certain
limitations. Productivity and meeting the domestic food demand
have not been achieved because of a range of issues relating to
polarisation of Venezuelan society and heavy opposition from the
landed and business oligarchies and TNCs. Similarly, there has been
a weak institutional framework to support the agrarian reform. Not
least of the restraints on an alternative agrarian development is the
inherited food insecurity and dependency on the enclave oil
industry, which tends to contract agriculture and create cheap
imports that substitute for domestic food production. Additionally,
most of the reforms and FS changes are actually funded by this neoextractivism, which evidently is not sustainable.
In many ways the state has tried to replicate land reform
models of both Kay and Chayanov combining cooperative farms and
distributing land to small families. As Kay predicted, land and
generally agrarian reform have not been successful because of the
existence of the landed oligarchy, which has opposed reform every
step of the way. This of course has been accompanied by a weak
legal system. One of the biggest issues for FS is the extent to which
the population is urbanised. With 89% of the population living in the
cities and such an unequal distribution of land, there would have to
be a massive re-peasantisation and more radical land reforms to
allow a peasant-based agriculture to sustain the nation.
The cooperatives have not been very productive partly
because of class dynamics and partly because of poor land reform
and planning; there are often too many farmers for the land
distributed. The peasantry even in the cooperatives tends to be

semi-proletarian providing problems for conceptions of the
peasantry in the FS movement but also for agricultural productivity.
Whilst reacting to shortages and opposition offensives the
government has confronted the agri-food industry and its monopoly
on the food market. Subsequently, this has brought with it a reduced
production of the agro-food sector and increased problems with
hoarding, non-compliance to regulation and essentially an economic
war. The agri-food industry is one of the main problems to FS and so
it is necessary for agri-food monopolies to be weakened; but whilst
the government is confronting the agroindustry, the alternative is
not materialising. If anything, the case of Venezuela demonstrates
the difficulty of directly challenging the agroindustrial complex.
On the other hand, although not perfectly functioning the
communal councils, Mercal and PDVAL have solved the downstream
question to some extent by bridging the rural-urban gap. They
simultaneously connect farmers with the urban consumers providing
cheap food and paying fair prices. Mercal and PDVAL have also
allowed goods to bypass the agroindustry reducing its dominance.
Furthermore, the councils can act as a medium through which
sovereignties can be negotiated and cooperation with the state
achieved. The councils could lay the foundations for a more efficient
model of FS to be reached with more participation. Hopefully the
state can reinforce the institutional framework, increase land reform
and overcome the agroindustry. On top of that, if horizontal peasant
networks can establish themselves and promote the sharing of
information, then agroecology could take off as it did in Cuba. New
urban farming projects like that of Cuba have begun this year.
Perhaps this is a new stage for the FS experiment in Venezuela that
could lead down a more successful path. As Patel already noted, FS
does not have a strict design but is to be adapted to different
circumstances; inevitably Venezuela will have to adjust its FS project
and allow for more participation from below.
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