Venezuela

Articles, reports and news about the struggle for land reform and agrarian change in Venezuela

Vía Campesina in Latin America Will Form an Agro-Ecological Contingent
Fausto Torrez, ATC, CLOC-Vía Campesina
December 18, 2006 - On September 26, 2005 in Sabaneta, Alberto Arvelo Torrealba municipality, state of Barinas, Venezuela an agreement on agricultural technical cooperation was signed between the Via Campesina- MST and the Bolivarian Government of Venezuela.

The signatories were President Hugo Chávez on behalf of the Bolivarian government of Venezuela, authorities of the state government of Barinas, the Minister of Agriculture and Land, and Joao Pedro Stedile on behalf of the Landless Rural Workers Movement of Brazil (MST) and the Via Campesina.

Venezuela’s Land Reform: Land for People not for Profit in Venezuela
Gregory Wilpert
September 20, 2005 - The Venezuelan government under President Hugo Chavez is the only government in Latin America, and perhaps even in the world, that is currently trying to pursue an ambitious land and agrarian reform program. The government has also introduced new agricultural policy principles, such as those of food sovereignty and the primacy of land use over land ownership. Because of this, despite the fact that Venezuela has a relatively small agricultural sector, land reform has become one of the Chavez government’s most controversial policy endeavors. Exactly why this land reform is so controversial, what it consists of, and what are its problems and prospects are some of the issues we will examine in the following pages.

Interview with Peter Rosset of CECCAM and Land Research Action Network: Agrarian Reform, Land Reform, Food Sovereignty
Nic Paget-Clarke (In Motion Magazine) and Peter Rosset (LRAN, CECCAM), In Motion Magazine
July 20, 2005 - This interview for In Motion Magazine, April 15, 2005, was held in San Felipe, Yaracuy, Venezuela during a workshop on land reform held as part of a nationwide conference called “The 3rd International Gathering in Solidarity with the Bolivarian Revolution”. The Via Campesina delegation was doing a followup on an agreement (Chavez, Los Tapes y Las Semillas) that President Hugo Chavez signed at the MST settlement of Tapas in Rio Grande Do Sul, Brazil during the (2004) World Social Forum. This was a historic agreement between a government, the Chavez government, and a social movement, the Landless Social Movement, the MST, in Brazil, plus the Via Campesina, as the global alliance of peasant organizations, and a university and a state government in Brazil to create a Latin American School of Agroecology for peasant movements.

Venezuela Embarks on New Land Reform
Dow Jones Newswires
June 21, 2005 - The government of President Hugo Chavez is moving
aggressively in a plan to overhaul landownership in the
Andean nation, where about 80% of the population lives
in poverty. A new land titling effort aims to address inequality in the countryside. The efforts are part of a more comprehensive "land revolution" to be implemented over several years.

Backgrounder: Land Reform in Venezuela
Global Exchange
July 07, 2004 - This two page overview of Venezuelan land reform foucuses on the current policies of President Hugo Chavez and the renewed emphasis on rural development in the early part of the 21st century. A brief background and summary of land reform policy and rural development in Venezuela since 1492 is provided along with consideration of the current challenges that landless Venezuelan's face in an age of international economic pressures and agribusiness.

Indigenous Rights Attorney Assassinated in Venezuela
Alex Contreras Baspineiro, The Narco News Bulletin
July 07, 2004 - Just hours before President Hugo Chavez was slated to deliver thousands of hectares of land to indigenous and peasant farmer communities indigenous rights attorney, Joe Castillo ,was assassinated. Within hours of the return of lands to people, another defender was shot down.

75,000 Venezuelan Peasants Win Land Titles
Argiris Malapanis with Olivia Nelson & Natalie Doucet, The Militant
July 06, 2004 - Big farmers tried to block implementation of agrarian reform law that has already benefitted tens of thousands of Venezuelan families.This report comments extensively on how the land reform is benefitting poor peasants in Venezuela.

I'm a Landless Peasant, I've Got Land but it's in the Graveyard
Maurice Lemoine, Le Monde Diplomatique
October 23, 2003 - Venezuela's opposition particularly loathes the crucial agricultural reforms of President Hugo Chávez, which have begun to return parts of enormous,barely used land-holdings to poor landless peasants and to encourage them to grow their own food and build working communities.

To Fight for the Land and to Learn from the Struggle
Thierry Deronne, Translated by Greg Wilpert and Nathan Converse
October 16, 2003 - A Press Conference was held prior to the International Conference of Resistance and Solidarity of the indigenous peoples and peasants in Caracas on August 30, 2003. The transcript includes interviews with some confernce participants prior to the conference, which was held October 11-14, 2003 in Venezuela.

Chavez Led Land Reform Enrages Large Landowners
Reed Lindsay, The Toronto Star
September 25, 2003 - In this oil-rich and largely urban nation, the ruling elite has long overlooked gaping inequalities in land ownership. In an attempt to rectify this inequity, President Chavez says, the government will distribute 2 million hectares of idle, state-owned land to as many as 100,000 families by the end of this year.