Posted on 06/20/2009 7:08:38 PM PDT by La Lydia
LAS VEGAS, Venezuela -- Dreaming of a new life, Ramón Barrera came to El Charcote, a vast farm here in northwestern Venezuela, several years after President Hugo Chávez's populist government had expropriated the property from its longtime owners and begun distributing parcels to small farmers...Six months after he arrived, Barrera's 37 acres are fallow, so he spends his time feeding grain to nine scrawny pigs. He and other farmers trying to earn a living on the farm's sunbaked expanse said the technical help they had been promised never materialized...
Chávez's so-called back-to-the-land movement calls for the redistribution of land -- increasingly properties that the state has taken over in what officials term a "rescue" or "recuperation." The objective is to ensure "food sovereignty," thereby reducing dependence on imports. But nearly five years after the measures were implemented, farmers and agriculture experts say, Venezuela is not only far from self-sufficient in food, but also more dependent than ever on foreign countries. Food imports rose to $7.5 billion last year, a sixfold increase since Chávez took power a decade ago.
That has not stopped the government from accelerating its policy of dismantling big haciendas, holdings that officials often describe as unproductive...
"...that land is not yours. The land is not private. It is the property of the state," Chávez said last month on an episode of his weekly television show broadcast from rural Barinas state, where he grew up....
But production of some of the mainstays of Venezuelan agriculture -- beef, rice, sugar cane, milk -- has fallen off, economists and food producers say. They attribute the contraction to the chilling effects of the land-confiscation program and government-set price controls. With consumption increasing, food prices have soared in Caracas, and there have been occasional scarcities.
(Excerpt) Read more at washingtonpost.com ...
Coming soon to a neighborhood near you.
—bflr—
And redistribution is what drives Obama.
vaudine
bttt
The Washington Post?
This doesn’t look good for Obama.
All socialist “reformers” are more about power than the betterment of the people, that’s one of the greatest reasons why it doesn’t work. And they all think they are smarter than the natural process that tend to make things work. IMHO ;-)
Land confiscation is one of the favorite hobbies of Leftists. Mugabe has turned a once prosperous farming country in Zimbabwe into an empty begging bowl. Hugo Chavez will do the same for Venezuela. And in the good old USA, BO’s Socialists are dismantling the agriculture infrastructure through cap and trade that has fed generations of Americans with affordable food. Next he’ll be emptying the cities and sending them to grow gardens like Michelle My Belle is doing. (There is something highly suspicious about being able to harvest large tomatoes, beans etc. in 21 days for a photo op. She must be some farmer.)
What better way to control the population-determine what, when, and how much they can eat.
Sitting on a piece of land doesn’t make someone a farmer!
How interesting. The story reads like our budding government run financial and manufacturing industries, as well as our more mature government controlled oil and gas industry.
It always works this way.
Government seizes agricultural assets and "distributes" them (as Obama would say) to the poor and needy. Who have neither the capital nor the technology to maintain production levels. Production goes down, prices go up.
Trying to save face, the government introduces price controls. Production declines further.
In the end, everybody starves -- except those in power.
For 200 years, this pattern has repeated itself. But the liberals still pursue redistribution of wealth. Talk about "bitter clingers"...
Of course, Stalin set the goal very high for what he did to Ukraine.
Harry Truman had them nailed.
"Liberals will always tell you how they are for world peace and want to help the common man. Don't believe them. All they're interested in is power."
Let’s put it this way, she is the only person in this region that I know of who has tomatoes already.
Harry had it right. ;-)
LOL, South America has its very own Zimbabwe!
America’s rats must be jealous....
I thought that was really odd too. What an amazing growth rate they had. But the media won’t dare question it, mostly because they don’t know better.
“If Communism ever took over the Sahara Desert, what would happen? For ten years, nothing. Then there would be a shortage of sand.”
—old Soviet joke
Hugo Chavez, building a South American Zimbabwe.
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