3 ms·

Isn't agriculture well-developed in Venezuela ? Any historical reason for why this is ?

• snrplfth 10y ago
  It was well-developed, but when you can't import machinery and fertilizer, your agricultural production is quickly limited. And when the prices of the products that you sell are price-controlled, there's no reason to expand production because you're losing money on any investment you make in agriculture.
  • gnipgnip 10y ago
    That makes sense; speaks a lot for the criminal mismanagement of a clueless state (largely true of India before the 90s, kind of true even today).
    • snrplfth 10y ago
      I think cluelessness has a lot to do with it - though it's increasingly hard to believe that people are still unaware that price controls generate shortages. Maybe some policies just have that property of being politically feasible enough to overcome the fact that they're useless.
  • pvaldes 10y ago
    Don't forget also the disdain for environmental problems that always bite you hard in return a few years later. In the Chavez presidency, the Lake Maracaibo protection was neglected, leading to serious pillage and contamination episodes by Hidrolago, Petrol companies, etc... The old ecosystem, plenty of fishes was destroyed and displaced by another ecosystem, one that is very ill. You can't use this water anymore to provide food for the people. Most fishes are gone and duckweeds poison the water regularly. You can easily create fertilizer processing organic residues, after all is a "subproduct of humans", but the government decided instead to simply trow all to the lake without any processing, that is a criminal movement.