Land Reform

Through their communal councils, many agricultural villages and towns are organizing to develop transportation infrastructure in order to make production economically viable.

One of the goals of the Venezuelan government and its people is a food system that is just and sustainable, that is able to provide what people need. Based on the examples provided here, it is certain that great strides have been made in the 10 years of the Chavez administration to address issues of food sovereignty, but Venezuela is working against years and years of damage that has already been done.

In Merida, Venezuela socialist governing officials clashed last June with families that took over unproductive farm land. This clash illustrates an apparent contradiction within the Chavez government's "participatory and protagonistic democracy" which calls on citizens to seize control over their communities and lives yet must also ensure political stability in strategic regions of the country.

Latin America’s battalion of left-leaning leaders has been in full voice as they turn to achieve the land reform goals of the Bolivarian Revolution. The tenets of this revolution are best seen today at work in Venezuela and Bolivia.

Cooperativist ecological farmers supported by the Venezuelan government’s land reform programs were attacked last Thursday by armed and masked men who, the farmers say, were hired by large estate owners in the area to cut short the changes heralded by the “Bolivarian Revolution” in their rural Andean Mountain valley.

"As far as you can see, there was not one litre of milk produced, not even an ear of corn," says José Tapia Coirán, turning with his arms outstretched, pointing to the horizon of the Venezuelan savannah dotted by trees. "Now we produce 500 litres of milk per day and we harvested one million kilos of maize."

Last week, the Los Angeles Times gleefully reported that a crowd in Sabaneta, Venezuela, had looted a food warehouse belonging to the state-owned Mercal grocery-store chain.

“It is not possible [to accept] the continued massacre of our campesinos ”, Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez declared on August 6, “The chiefs of police must respond to these acts... if they feel incapable they must resign.”

In the middle of the modern, concrete city of Caracas, Venezuela, Noralí Verenzuela is standing in a garden dressed in jeans and work boots. She is the director of the Organopónico Bolivar I, the first urban, organic garden to show its green face in the heart of the city of Caracas, Venezuela.

The Urban Land Committees represent one of Venezuela’s most interesting and significant developments. The success or failure of these Committees could be one of the most important factors determining how transformative the current process will be for Venezuela.