Latin America

Venezuela Land Reform Looks to Seize Idle Farmland

By Juan Forero
Jan. 30, 2005

EL CHARCOTE, Venezuela - There may be no more explosive issue in Latin American politics than land reform, or how to address the problem of too much land in the hands of so few people.

. . .

So far, disputes over the distribution of public land have been relatively rare, with farmers making complaints in about 5 percent of the cases that land they held title to was taken away. But violence is not unheard of, and about 80 peasant land invaders have been killed by landowners, most of them during Mr. Chávez's six years in office.

. . .

Mr. Chávez and peasant farmers across Venezuela say such steps are needed because a small minority of landowners control a vast majority of arable lands, leaving most of the peasantry landless and impoverished and Venezuela importing most of its food.

"Any self-respecting revolution cannot permit such a situation," Mr. Chávez said earlier this month as he signed a decree forming a national commission that will evaluate farms' productivity and the legitimacy of their ownership.

Mr. Chávez's government says its priority is not to expropriate, but rather to tax farms into productivity, by levying stiff penalties against land that is not being put to use. The plan gives farmers with idle fields two years to make them productive.

"We are trying to make a country where agriculture was abandoned into one where it is revived," said Marisol Plaza, Venezuela's solicitor general.

The only lands to be seized, the government says, are those that were illegally obtained. Other, unproductive lands will be expropriated with compensation.

https://www.nytimes.com/2005/01/30/world/americas/venezuela-land-reform-looks-to-seize-idle-farmland.html

More:
www.nytimes.com/2005/01/30/world/americas/venezuela-land-reform-looks-to-seize-idle-farmland.html

or:
https://web.archive.org/web/20240725030211/https://www.nytimes.com/2005/01/30/world/americas/venezuela-land-reform-looks-to-seize-idle-farmland.html

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From the Guardian, during Chavez:


This article is more than 19 years old
Venezuela moves to seize thousands of hectares of 'idle' land from British peer

Associated Press in Caracas
Mon 14 Mar 2005 05.34 EST

The Venezuelan government is to press ahead with plans to expropriate land from a British-owned farm this week, sparking fears of large-scale land grab under the leftist government.

The national lands institute ruled at the weekend that the landowner - Agroflora, an affiliate of the Vestey Group, owned by the tycoon Lord Vestey - did not have a legitimate claim to the land.

. . .

The takeover is part of moves to hand 96,440 hectares (238,620 acres) of Venezuelan land to the poor.

The state will take a large part of Lord Vestey's 13,600-hectare El Charcote cattle ranch in Cojedes state east of Caracas, and most of the 80,000-hectare Pinero Ranch animal reserve, the land agency said. It will also take large chunks of two other ranches. None of the owners could be reached for comment.

National land institute director Eliezer Otaiza told Reuters it would take the land to develop state-sponsored agriculture projects. "The land is going to pass over to us now," he said. "Tomorrow starts the rescue process."

Mr Otaiza said the farms had failed to prove ownership, but had 60 days to appeal to the courts.

The decision follows weeks of land inspections as part of President Hugo Chávez's 2001 land reform law, which allows the state to expropriate farmland if it is "idle", or if rightful ownership is not proved as far back as 1830.

More:
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2005/mar/14/venezuela











Samuel Vestey, 3rd Baron Vestey, one of England's wealthiest peeps and personal friend of Queen Elizabeth

Also owner of many latifundios (huge estates) in Venezuela