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  • Ruins from the latifundio (large estate) at this Venezuelan farming cooperative, Aracal, in the state of Yaracuy, serve as a historical reminder of the previous ownership of this reclaimed land and the battles waged here.
  • Cesar, an administrator at Aracal, holds a booklet detailing the “Law of Lands and Agrarian Development”, written in 2001 under the Chavez government. These new laws were the basis for the claim and occupation of Aracal by a group of more than 500 farmers from the area. The occupation was met with violent resistance from the local police, under instructions from the state government, who were then in opposition to the federal laws. By 2007 in Venezuela, 3.4 million acres of land (many of which was state-owned) had been reclaimed under these laws.
  • Maria, one of the oldest workers at Aracal, rests in the shade and looks out onto the farm grounds. A condition of reclamation of the land was that ownership be held by a cooperative. Office bearers are elected by the members every year, and a weekly meeting is held where members discuss and vote on the management of the farm.
  • Workers queue up every Saturday after the week’s work to receive their salary of 105 Bolivares Fuertes (about US$50). Members of the cooperative receive the same salary representing their share of future profits regardless of job or responsibility. Although this salary is currently below the minimum wage of 185 BF, the members are hoping to increase production and profits, and therefore their salary.
  • A farmer throws plantain roots onto the fields to be sown by trailing workers. Crops produced at Aracal include maize, plantains, caraoata, tomatoes, pimientos, and pimenton. Recent diversification has included a dairy and fish farms.
  • Richard Sanchez is a government employed agricultural scientist, at Aracal to advise on a trial of mixed production, planting pulp producing trees, inter-mixed with lechosa and caraota. Diversification is a key strategy of Aracal, to help improve yields and sustainability.
  • Planting 'Gmelina Arborea', a fast growing tree in the fields at Aracal. Workers are organized into functional teams, each with an elected team leader. When a team has no work on a given day, the members help other teams.
  • Early morning dairy workers at Aracal milk the cows at the Ganadaria, supplying a local dairy. About 130-140 litres of milk are produced daily
  • Maria, another worker at Aracal, cleans caraota beans. Caraota, a black bean, related to frijoles, is a staple for Venezuelans. In 2007, Venezuela only produced about 25% of their requirements for Caraota, requiring 60,000 tonnes to be imported. Under the national government’s food sovereignty initiatives, agricultural credits, technical assistance and guaranteed prices are promoting farms such as Aracal to produce crops that can be consumed locally, rather than being imported.
  • Antonio Callazo Ramirez, a Cuban agronomic engineer is the president of an agricultural cooperative in the east of Cuba. He is at Aracal for 2 years under an agreement between the Venezuelan and Cuban governments to provide technical assistance.
  • A mechanic sharpens a machete in the workshop at Aracal. A team of engineers and mechanics maintain the agricultural equipment used here and also by the neighboring farmers.
  • Aracal farmers staff a community market twice a week where they sell their plantains and pimientos. The majority of Aracal’s products enter the socialist economy, established by the government with the aim to provide fair prices for the producers and low prices for the consumers.
Venezuelan Cooperative - Aracal
August/September 2008

A modest farm named Aracal in the Venezuelan state of Yaracuy, is an unlikely place to see some of the many changes that have occured in Venezuela in the last 10 years. But ask any of the more than 130 members of the cooperative that work there, and you will understand how fundamentally their lives have changed.

Every one of them struggled for the land that they now call their own, and they do their own part, not just to provide a living for themselves and their families, but also to support the new socialist economy, and efforts to achieve food sovereignity and security.

 

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