Growing imports show the failure of Venezuela's agrarian model

Transforming Venezuela into a large agriculture producer across Latin America has been one of the unfulfilled promises of President Hugo Chávez ever since he took office in 1999. After 14 years, agriculture is still underdeveloped. In fact, it is among the goals and provisions for the next six-year term.

The president has placed special emphasis on the need to recover lands good for agriculture and "democratize" prices by fighting against large estates to guarantee land's efficiency and enhance production. It all aims at self-sufficiency, import substitution, and food export.

However, over the last 14 years, imports of agriculture raw materials and food itself have shot up whereas domestic production continues falling year after year.
Venezuela's oil boom has allowed the Government to keep its massive import policy to meet food domestic demand and, therefore, fill the gaps in domestic production.

However, expenditure skyrockets as imports are paid for at historically high prices.

According to the National Statistics Institute (INE), imports jumped from USD 1.47 billion in January-July 2011 to 3.06 billion during the same period in 2012. In other words, in 2012, more money (107.3%) has been needed to bring more food into the country.

acontreras@eluniversal.com

Translated by Jhean Cabrera