Another doomed experiment in socialized agriculture underway in Venezuela

Venezuela's Chavez announces plans for 'collective property' under shift toward socialism - International Herald Tribune:
"'If Mr. Chavez really wants to help Venezuela's poor farmers, he must offer them technical assistance and sufficient financing because land doesn't become productive without investment,' said opposition leader Alfonzo Marquina. 'We're only seeing increasing shortages and more expensive products.'"

Alfonso Marquina is absolutely right. Merely putting a bunch of campesinos on a large plot of seized land and telling them they are a cooperative now is only setting them up for failure. In fact, I suspect that is El Commandante's plan. When the coops go bust, he will have an excuse to set up state-owned and managed farms. The campesinos will still be poor, the government will think itself rich, and poor Venezuela will still be importing food.

Agriculture, if it is to be anything more than mere subsistence, requires investment and education. Chavez could show he is serious about agricultural productivity if his government were increasing the budget for agricultural research, for extension work to teach best practices to farmers, and to establish a system of production credit.

The education component is vital. You cannot take a farmworkers who have followed orders all their lives and just expect that they all magically comprehend the big picture. A man can know a lot about animals from riding herd on them for many years, but that doesn't mean he has learned anything useful about when and how to market them and that is the difference between success and failure. Likewise, driving farm machinery to plant, cultivate and harvest doesn't make you an expert on when to sell immediately and when to hold the crop in storage or how to hedge with futures contracts.

My suspicion is that in a few years agriculture in Venezuela will be in serious decline as it is in that other socialist paradise Zimbabwe.