Venezuela's Food Chain Has Broken

With domestic production of food hobbled, Venezuela relies on food imports, which make up 85% of the food supply. A market in Maracaibo. Photo: Luis Bravo/Agence France-Presse  

WSJ: Venezuela’s Food Chain Is Breaking, and Millions Go Hungry  

A report found 13% of children under 5 are stunted; oil-rich nation is ‘on the edge of an irreversible catastrophe’ 

Ana Nuñez, a 62-year-old retired municipal worker in western Venezuela, says her meals often consist of just a few corn-flour pancakes, known as arepas. 

Even when she has money to buy groceries in the city of Maracaibo’s teeming flea market, she said that “instead of quality food they sell garbage, like animal hides and rotten cheese.” 

A widespread scarcity of gasoline is the latest blow to domestic food production in Venezuela, preventing goods from getting to market and farmers from filling up their tractors. Food production in this oil-rich nation, led by its socialist president, Nicolas Maduro, had already been hobbled by shortages of seeds and agrochemicals, price controls that made raising crops unprofitable and government seizures of farms and food-processing plants. 

Venezuelans aren’t the only ones going hungry. Across Latin America the economic blow caused by the Covid-19 pandemic has thrown millions out of work and into poverty. 

From Mexico City to Santiago, people are skipping meals, lining up at soup kitchens and begging, United Nations agencies say. 

But conditions in Venezuela, which even before the pandemic was suffering the worst economic meltdown in its history, are by far the most dire.  

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WNU Editor: I still have one contact in Caracus who has been feeding me info for years on what is happening in Venezuela. He mentioned to me during the summer that the availability of food was now only to those who can afford it and/or to those in government. And Venezuela is not the only one facing this crisis (albeit it is the worst one in the hemisphere). Central and South America along with a few Caribbean countries are now facing a humanitarian food crisis that is unprecedented in modern times .... No Meat, No Milk, No Bread, hunger CRisis Rocks Latin America (Bloomberg). More here .... Global Food Shortages Are Becoming Very Real, And US Grocery Store Chains Are Preparing For Worst Case Scenarios (Zero Hedge).

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