Chavez starts city farming for Venezuelans in poverty
Posted on Wed, Apr. 30, 2003 By Christopher Toothaker ContraCostaTimes.com-ASSOCIATED PRESS
CARACAS, Venezuela -President Hugo Chavez could not persuade city folks to move to the sparsely populated interior to help Venezuela feed itself. So he is bringing farming to the city.
With help from the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization, the populist ex-paratrooper who sold mangoes as a child hopes to give Caracas residents a green thumb as a way to fight poverty and malnutrition.
Despite the country's oil riches, more than half of its 24 million people live in poverty. According to the latest statistics from the U.N. Department of Economic and Social Affairs, at least 5 percent of Venezuelan children under age 5 were undernourished in 2000.
Most Venezuelans make the minimum wage of $120 a month. Even if two parents work, it is not enough for the $585 the average family of five needs for just a basic living.
Chavez is urging shantytown residents to plant rooftop gardens. And he has the army helping in a campaign to turn abandoned land into community gardens.
At one lot in downtown Caracas recently, soldiers hauled wheelbarrows of dark soil while Cuban agriculture experts from the FAO reviewed plans, and volunteers -- many of whom had never seen a farm -- planted vegetables.
"We are using intensive farming with high rotation (of crops) all year long," said Mirium Carrion, a Cuban adviser. "If we don't get at least five or six harvests a year, it really isn't feasible."
Flowers, green peppers, beets and even medicinal plants such as aloe have been planted on a 1.3-acre plot next to a Hilton hotel.
"Everything that is planted and harvested here will be sold to the public," said Amado Perdigon, an agronomic engineer. "Volunteers will share in the profits and a portion will be put back into the program to keep it going."
Critics say the campaign means well, but they argue that it is based on projects that have failed in communist countries and say the government would do more to alleviate food shortages if it helped the private business sector.
Chavez says his government aims to get vegetables planted on more than 2,470 acres in Caracas and surrounding areas, including city slums, this year. "We are planting a new life for Venezuela," he proclaimed recently.
The government will spend $2 million for the projects in Caracas, said Ricaurte Leonett, the deputy agriculture minister.
Chavez first tried to persuade city people to become farmers after mudslides and flash floods killed 15,000 Venezuelans and left tens of thousands homeless near the capital. Most of the homeless refused to budge, preferring to stay with relatives or rebuild precarious shanties.
Recession continues
The city farm project comes as Venezuela suffers one of its worst recessions in decades.
A two-month general strike that ended in February and a government freeze on spending U.S. dollars have worsened food shortages. Called by labor and business groups to demand Chavez's resignation, the strike failed while costing Venezuela an estimated $6 billion in lost production.
The stoppage also led the government to impose currency exchange controls to stem a slide in foreign currency reserves. Since January, not one dollar has been granted to food importers in a country that imports 60 percent of its food.
Besides encouraging city farming, the government plans to sell 112,000 tons of food each month to the poor at bargain prices. The Special Food Security Plan, with soldiers distributing and selling the food, will cost the government $70 million a month, Chavez said.
Critics argue that the cost will outweigh the effort's benefits while further hurting the struggling private sector.
Michael Shifter, an analyst at the Inter-American Dialogue in Washington, said the project is well-intentioned but based on failed models in Cuba and other communist countries.
"There aren't many success stories regarding similar efforts," he said. "This goes against what many see as the proper role for the military. It helps him (Chavez) consolidate power while leaving private enterprise out."
The army also is providing urban farmers with old wooden shipping pallets and trash bags to build growing containers.
In Caracas' Tamarindo slum, the crates are sprouting with lettuce, eggplant, tomatoes and broccoli. They are on balconies and rooftops in the labyrinth of red-brick shanties clinging to hillsides.
"This is eggplant and that one is broccoli, all planted a few weeks ago," said Eloy Guerrero, a 53-year-old carpenter who supports a family of six. "I don't know how much food it will provide, but it's something for my family during hard times."