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It is now vox populi that Venezuela is suffering a major political induced economic crisis which has yielded bread lines and people dead from the lack of medicine. The two root causes are well known. Historically it starts with a dependency on a major resource to feed upo a dysfunctional patronage and welfare state; oil. Populism has been the continuing line of politics since the late 60ies, a line dramatically expanded by Hugo Chavez since 1998. To this tradition Chavez added incompetency, empty ideas, willful prejudice, corruption and even drug traffic, the lone prosperous industry in Venezuela these days.It is not the aim of this entry to detail the catastrophe that has befallen Venezuela. I will only write some of the key events that have happened to my business, making it nearly bankrupt not through my own possible incompetency but through regulations that have strangled the life of all private business that are not associated with the corruption of the regime.Chavez started with a new constitution that had a "free property, but..." feel. At first things kept as they were in 1998 which is to say not very well. But we could work, we could import raw materials to work, an important element since already in 1998 Venezuela was a net importer of raw materials and semi processed goods. Still, my business, agribusiness in nature, was able to do some small exports and was poised to expand these significantly to Colombia. Other plans included a project to export to Europe a choice crop from our family farm once our volume justified the export needs and costs, a farm for which we had obtained organic certification.Then, slowly but surely the regime started to establish a series of controls that wrecked the economy. I am not going to go through them chronologically, just giving a main list.
There are more examples I can give but to finish this let's revisit the organic crops we were planning on developing to get enough volume to justify exports. Sometime in 2002 or 2003 if memory serves me well Chavez decided that Venezuela should not export food, that it was a crime against the Venezuelan people to sell its food overseas. I am not going to insult the reader intelligence discussing the ignorance of Chavez as failing to understand that it is OK for Venezuela to export tropical fruits in exchange of apples and wine.The fact of the matter is that then not only we had to stop the small exports we were already making, and lose all the marketing made before, losing those markets, but even the organic farm project was stopped. We did not renew our organic certification. We stopped planting new land. We basically maintained what we had, at a loss, in the hope that someday exports be authorized again. To which I must add that the devastating insecurity that now hovers all of the farm land of Venezuela has made it impossible for us to visit the farm for the last 4 years. We have to rely on intermediaries and hope for the best. Owners of land simply cannot reside on their lands anymore as they will, within days, be attacked by armed gangs bent on ransom. If you persist then you must pay for armored vehicles and at least a couple fo body guards. More costs that not every business can afford.
