The Conflicted State and Agrarian Transformation in Pink TideVenezuela

Abstract

Can radical political-economic transformation be achieved by electoral regimes that have not thoroughly reconstructed the state? Contemporary Venezuela offers an optimal venue for examining this question. The Chavista movement did not replace the previous state: instead, its leaders attempted to reform existing state entities and establish new ones in pursuit of its transformation agenda. It has also used its oil wealth to support cooperatively-oriented economic activity, without necessarily fundamentally altering the property structure. Thus, the social change-oriented political economy exists alongside the traditional one. Focusing on agrarian transformation, we examine ethnographically how these factors have impacted the state's capacity to attain its goal of national food sovereignty. We find that the state's ability to accomplish this objective has been compromised by lack of agency-level capacity, inter-agency conflict and the persistence of the previously-extant agrarian property structure. These dynamics have influenced the state to shift from its initial objective of food sovereignty to a policy of nationalist food security.

The hidden edifice of (food) sovereignty: Rights, territory, and the struggle for agrarian reform in Venezuela

“…Indeed, after 2011, in the face of falling production in the countryside, Chávez' Gran Misión AgroVenezuela aimed to expand the total surface area under production, increase production of the main staple crops (corn and rice), and promote urban agriculture. This policy has thus favoured large‐scale state‐led agricultural development, with a steady shift away from small‐scale FS initiatives (Enríquez & Newman, , p. 14).…”

The political economy of rentier capitalism and the limits to agrarian transformation in Venezuela

“…Enríquez and Newman have dealt in detail with the tensions between food sovereignty and food security through the lens of “dual power” (Enríquez, ) and the “dual‐institutional structure” of the state (Enríquez & Newman, ). They point out that oil money allowed Venezuela to “cheat” on immediate reform problems posed by potential losses in productivity as the ability to import food freed up space to experiment with radical food sovereignty reforms based upon cooperatives (2016, p. 7).…”

“…As part of the government‐promoted social programmes known as misiones (missions), food security concerns led to the creation of the subsidized food network MERCAL, with 13,000 outlets and 4,000 feeding houses ( casas de alimentación ) as distribution points to improve food security (mainly through imports) across the country (Morales, ). This established, early on in the Bolivarian Revolution, that the availability and price of food were integral to the regime's capacity to maintain its base of support (Enríquez & Newman, ).…”

“…The state also created socialist production companies, designed to purchase agricultural products at above market rates and anchor the productive activities of agrarian cooperatives lacking the scale of production and market access needed for their own expanded reproduction (Purcell, ). This trend towards greater state intervention in food production and distribution continued with expansion of credit lines, the recovery of more lands (totalling 6.3 million hectares by 2013) from latifundios to create large state farms in the form of UPS, and the expropriation of agro‐industrial food processing companies to combat food inflation through state‐owned socialist enterprises (Enríquez & Newman, ). However, the overriding logic was the ideological propagation of “socialist humanism”—prices below production costs—rather than a technical question of economic management and raising production levels (Ellner, ).…”

“…The state of Portuguesa is Venezuela's most important producer of rice, grains, and corn. These fundamental items in the food basket have historically been produced by capital‐intensive, highly mechanized farms of 200 hectares and above, which control more than half of Portuguesa's agricultural land (Enriquez & Newman, , p. 15; Rodríguez, , p. 94). Up until 2006, producers and industrial processors in Portuguesa—taking advantage of government subsidies—were exporting surplus rice to regional markets such as Colombia (interview, October 20, 2015).…”