* Land interventions in Cojedes State continued this week, enforcing the decree issued by Cojedes Governor Johnny Yánez Rangel with regard to 16 estates. Following the effective intervention of El Charcote farm last Saturday, regional authorities planned to seize several properties of the Boulton family in Cojedes, such as Gavinero, Yaguara, San José and La Flecha.
 
* During his intervention in President Hugo Chávez' weekly radio and TV program "Hello, President!", Governor Yánez Rangel said that they intend to check land ownership and review the boundaries to regulate any abnormality. According to him, all of this would be made under the legal framework, because the idea is to recover land productivity.
 
* President Chávez signed into law on Monday afternoon the Decree on land tenure and sworn the National Agrarian Committee, which will implement the decree.
 
* The Decree is aimed at "consolidating the process of land tenure and layout and planning" in order to gradually eradicate large estates in the country's rural areas, benefiting local inmates and organized communities.
 
* The Decree also creates a National Agrarian Committee for using idle plots of land to develop the national agriculture. The Committee will also allocate these lands to local inmates and organized communities for the productive and sustainable use of the lands.

* Decree No. 3,408, aimed at waging a fight against large estate, establishes in Article 1 that it "is aimed at consolidating the process of reorganization, tenure and use of potentially agricultural lands for the purposes of removing gradually large estate in rural areas of Venezuela and involving organized groups and communities. Therefore, the sensible use of natural and agro-alimentary resources will be ensured through the planning by multiple sectors from the national, state and municipal governments, and will help to implement any related policies."
 
* Article No. 3 announces the establishment of an interim "national agricultural commission to include in the productive process towards domestic agricultural development, idle, abandoned or underused plots of land. In this regard, states and municipalities shall join efforts to make policies to remove gradually large estate in potentially agricultural lands, and allocate these lands to organized groups and communities for its productive, sustainable use."

* Ranchers members of the Colon Municipality ranchers association declared a state of alert following the issue of the decree on land intervention by the Venezuelan government.

* "We share the idea of productive lands. However, if the Venezuelan state needs lands for any socio-economic program, there is not need to confiscate them. Otherwise, our constitutional rights will be outraged. There is an administrative and legal due process that sets the guidelines," stated Rubén Barboza, head of the organization.

* Barboza said that he agreed with Zulia governor Manuel Rosales -who expressed his opposition to large estate and said that he would be issuing a local decree. "I think that his is a sensible stance. Any productive and effective plot of land, be it small, medium-size or large, should be respected, and any idle plot of land should be identified and intervened under the laws."

* Governor Rosales Monday will enact a decree on layout and planning of idle lands in this region and will announce the creation of the Zulia's Agrarian Commission. Rosales added that the land decree would be drafted by common consent of all sectors in this state.

* "The land decree will be worked out and drafted according to the Constitution, the laws of the Republic and the decree enacted by President Chávez. The point is to negotiate, have a dialogue and an agreement so that we can make headway in the two subjects that, as we have stated, have priority for the safety of the Venezuelan food sector," said Rosales. He described large estate, "as an obsolete model of land tenure" and defended  "the integral safety of rural areas and agrarian development."
 
* The head of the National Institute of Lands (INTI), Eliézer Otaiza, met with top officials of the National Assembly to discuss a fast-track amendment to the Lands Law intended by the government to advance its program on land layout and planning.
 
* Otaiza said that they decided to establish a task force to define the final version of the instrument that should be approved in the short term.
 
* Solicitor General Marisol Plaza reported that the amendment seeks to close the legal gap after the Supreme Tribunal of Justice ruled that article 89, Lands Law was null and void. In her opinion, "any reform proposal should be made without violating the TSJ provision and that gives continuity and consistency to the law." Additionally, the government will include some proposals made by agricultural sectors.
 
* Mérida Governor Florencio Porras said that there is need to regulate land tenure and turn idle plots into productive lands. He explained that the lands of interest are located in Southern Lake Maracaibo.
 
* Porras pointed out that all municipalities would be subject to the Lands Law, and added that from the town of Mujuquepe to San Rafael del Alcázar parish, there are 23,000 hectares that belong to one single family. However, these lands include settlements and small villages, and most of them are being used, but not by their owners. "Something needs to be elucidated here," he added.
 
* Agrarian reform may take several months as authorities review deeds, check production and make arrangements for tax collection of idle, private plots of land, said Otaiza, head of the INTI.

* Otaiza reported that the initial campaign would focus on checking plots of land and setting taxes to force landowners to make lands productive or be subject to prompt expropriation.
   
* The Venezuelan government is planning to implement in 2006 a tax that should be paid by the owners of unproductive or underused plots of land.

* Ranchers who have expressed their willingness to help fight poverty are concerned about any measures that may threaten private property. Critics say that agrarian policies are a tangle of ideas that has made slow progress over the last three years following the enactment of the law.

* "We are under a revolutionary process and some policies tend to revert colonialism," said Otaiza.

* Under the law, the state should compensate for any expropriation of unused lands. As part of a burdensome process, owners should offer production alternative plans or appeal to local agrarian courts.

* Otaiza reported that the government has granted already about one million hectares of state lands to small farmers.