Venezuelan farms have begun feeding
their workers — so they don't faint from hunger, by Eduard Freisler, 4/16/18.
VENEZUELA - When the workers on
Juan Daniel Arzola's farm in the central Venezuelan region of Guárico started
coming to work weak from hunger last year, he knew he had to make a change.
The
75-year-old farmer chose to cut back on producing food to sell in Venezuelan
markets in order to feed people closer to home: his workers and his family.
"I
have to make the decision between buying gallons of gas for my tractors or
having enough food for my guys,” said Arzola, wearing a large-brimmed straw hat
in the midday heat. "They started to come to work so hungry they were
almost fainting," he said.
In
a country where hunger has become so commonplace that Venezuelans have lost an
average of 11 kilos, or about 24 pounds, the idea of farmers reducing their
production sounds counter-intuitive and even inhumane.
But
with Venezuela in a steep economic crisis — and no end in sight — farmers
and farmworkers have found themselves making that difficult calculation as the
cost of running a farm has jumped. Back in November, Arzola had to pay 80,000
bolivares — at that time, about 75 cents — for a liter of oil. Last month, the
price shot to a staggering 1.6 million bolivares, or about $7. That means
Arzola cannot afford to expand his business. If he does, he would not be able
to feed his own workers.
If
the workers are too weak to keep up the pace, Arzola's farm would yield much
less. In addition, the hungry workers, in order to survive, would look for work
at a different farm that would feed them.
Other
farmers in Guárico have had to adopt his approach. “Most of us now pay labor
with food, not money,” explained dairy farmer Julio Hernandez, 50. Every week,
Hernandez gives two liters of milk to each of his 10 employees. In Venezuela,
where many children are now suffering from severe malnutrition, milk can be a
priceless gift.
The
quality of life for the farmworkers has also been decimated by Venezuela's
hyperinflation, which stands at around 2,600 percent, opposition lawmakers
claim. The International Monetary Fund predicts that inflation will soar to
13,000 percent by the end of the year.
According
to a recent study conducted by the Central University
of Venezuela and
two other universities, up to 90 percent of Venezuelans live in poverty now. As
a result, some urban Venezuelans are being drawn to rural areas in last-ditch
efforts for basic survival. Food is scarce in cities.
“People
are moving to the countryside because you can more or less survive if you have
a small plot of land and access to your own produce,” says Phil Gunson from the
International Crisis Group, a global non-governmental organization based in
Caracas.
"But
it doesn't resolve the healthcare situation. People can't get blood
pressure checked
so they die from a heart attack or a stroke. There is no chemotherapy for
cancer patients. People with chronic illnesses are simply not able to get their
treatments,” Gunson warned.
In
Guárico, where remote farms can be reached only in the dry season, lives are
especially at risk due to the lack of medicine that has also become scant under
President Nicolás Maduro's rule.
Hernandez,
the dairy farmer, said his 21-year-old goddaughter ran out of insulin and had
to be taken to a hospital. “My goddaughter died in an ambulance after its tire
went flat,” Hernandez said. "She didn't make it as there was no mechanic
available nor an extra ambulance."
Stories
like that are common here, as are abductions. Leydi Dorante, also a farmer, had
to pay a $300,000 ransom when her oldest child was kidnapped. The
39-year-old widow with three children is in charge
of a large farm in a region called Chaguaramal.
Her
farm still produces enough to sell in the national market. That's
something of a rarity these days in Venezuela's rural regions. The landscape
between Guárico and the capital, Caracas, includes dilapidated dairy and corn
farms, neglected fields taken over by weeds and roads full of potholes.
“Everywhere
you go these days in Venezuela you find a similar picture. Villages with
half-constructed projects, looted houses and ruins that provide shelter for
drifters who try to survive," says Ruben Soffer, a geographer and writer
from Caracas who has written articles about Guárico and other rural areas.
Soffer
has seen significant changes in Guárico during the country's deepening economic
and social crisis. Besides declining farm production and almost no cash in the
region, a feeling of personal insecurity has seeped deeply into the psyches of
Guárico’s people., he said. Despite the region's characteristic hospitality,
wary farmers keep guns close by lately, not trusting anyone.
"If
you come close to a farm and they don’t know you, the owner might shoot at
you,” warned Arzola. But many are too desperate to be deterred by armed
farmers. Dorante said she constantly deals with starving people who sneak
into her fields to get maize for traditional corn pancakes known as arepas.
Some even come to slaughter her animals for food or to take food to sell to a
market.
“I
lose around 5 percent of my profit" to theft, Dorante estimated. She said
big farms like hers can absorb the losses. “But for small producers, such level
of thievery is very hurtful and can kill the business,” she said.
While
she loves the farm life — the work, horseback riding and nature — she does not
want her 4-year-old daughter to follow in her footsteps. With kidnappings,
thieves, hard-to-get farm equipment, lack of medicine and worries about the
potential for government expropriation of land, Dorante says she hopes her
children will find new ways to make a living. "I
don't think there is a future in Venezuela," she concluded.
Venezuelan farmer Juan Daniel Arzola, who lives in the
Guárico region, said workers were coming to the farm faint from hunger. Humberto Duarte Special to the
Miami Herald
Norb Leahy, Dunwoody
GA Tea Party Leader
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