Venezuela is telling hungry city dwellers to grow their own food
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/worldviews/wp/2016/11/01/venezuela-is-telling-hungry-city-dwellers-to-grow-their-own-food/...“BBC Venezuela report has Chavistas explaining how they're going to feed people, grow medicine, through urban farming. No, really,” mocked another Twitter user.
When the project was presented in February, the newly created Ministry of Urban Agriculture announced that 12,000 square kilometers — about 4,600 square miles — would be planted in the first 100 days. The government promised to invest $300,000 in seeds, equipment and educational projects, and to help with logistics.
The government urged citizens to plant in every available space — private terraces, communal areas, jails and schools, among other sites — but did not itself provide the land.
Eight months into the project, only 21 square kilometers (about 8 square miles) of land have been cultivated, according to the ministry.
“How are you going to tell someone with no space for a plot to grow [their own food]?” asked De Leandro, whose family-owned farm was expropriated, like many other businesses, under former president Hugo Chávez's nationalization program....
...Barbara D’Ambruoso, 24, whose vegetable plot overlooks the sprawling city, has learned to carefully measure her water usage. “They cut our water supply from Saturday afternoon until Wednesday,” she said, alluding to government measures in response to the nationwide shortage.
Below D’Ambruoso’s hilltop home, one can see cramped apartments — part of Chavez’s housing mission, introduced by the late president to provide rent-free accommodation to the poorest families. Hardly an ideal setting for a lush little plot of land.
But limited land is not a restriction, says the Ministry of Urban Agriculture, suggesting that citizens can produce 20 kilos — nearly 45 pounds — of fruits and vegetables with just one meter of land....
