Cultivating Caracas

By Christopher Toothaker <a href=www.sun-sentinel.com>SunSentinel.com-The Associated Press Posted June 5 2003

CARACAS· President Hugo Chávez couldn't persuade city folks to move to the sparsely populated interior to help Venezuela feed itself. So he's bringing farming to the city.

With help from the United Nations 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 available from the U.N. Department of Economic and Social Affairs, at least 5 percent of Venezuelan children under 5 years old were undernourished in 2000.

Most Venezuelans make the minimum wage of $120 a month. Even if two parents work, it's not enough for the $585 the average family of five needs for just a basic living.

Chávez is urging shantytown residents to plant rooftop gardens. 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 a Cuban adviser, Mirium Carrion.

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."

Chávez says his government aims to get vegetables planted on more than 2,470 acres in Caracas and surrounding areas, including city slums, this year. The city farm project comes as Venezuela suffers one of its worst recessions in decades.

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, Chávez said.

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.