Venezuela Delegation for Comittee on World Food Security

FAO Model Conference 2015

In Venezuela the causes of food insecurity is a decline in the proportion of the rural
population or urbanization, while in 1960 35% of the rural population declined in the 1990s to just
12%. The majority of the rural population moved to the city when Venezuela is experiencing "oil
boom". After that food production fell. Approximately 70% of the food needs of the Venezuelan
people dependent on imports. In fact, more than half the population is classified as poor, and about
45% of them in the category of "extreme poverty". Venezuelans also have to buy food needs in the
supermarket cost the same as in the US.
Import dependency is what makes the Venezuelan people do not have access to good food
when world food prices suddenly shot up. Though According to the Committee on World Food
Security FAO in the Global Strategic Framework for Food Secuirty and Nutritions Third Version
(2014), the concept of food security itself is when all people, at all times, have physical access, social
and economic to sufficient, safe and nutritious food to meet their dietary needs and food preferences
for an active and healthy life. Means the food security essentially contains two basic elements, namely
the availability and accessibility to food itself, as in the case of food Venezuela is already available,
but the price is not affordable for people, food is available but not for access due to food imports. At
that time Venezuela has not had a good food security because it has not met one of the elements,
namely the accessibility of food.
Facing these problems, the former President Chavez started to become president in 1998
started to fix it. Former President Chavez began to fix food insecurity with rewriting the constitution,
while so far the policies that have been issued by the Venezuelan government to fight food insecurity
in the country. The first step Chavez for food sovereignty is land reform. It is set in the new
Venezuelan constitution. Then, in 2001, former President Chavez issued a law on land and
agricultural development. Under the slogan "back to the village," he asserted that the land unused or
idle should be used to increase food production. The program was successfully distribute lands idle
state to farmers and cooperatives. Then, the new Venezuelan law also allows retrieval of private land,
provided that: 50 hectares of land and 3,000 hectares of high quality to low quality land. The mission
was named mission-Zamora. Not only distributing land to farmers and cooperatives, the former
President Chavez government is also providing capital and technological support to farmers.
Secondly, Although farmers already produce, but if it is not supported by the processing
industry, the Venezuelan peasant production it will still be sold to the international market. Because
prices in the international market was relatively higher. But the Venezuelan people have to buy more
expensive crops that when they are processed into finished products. Our beloved President Chavez
was preparing processed plant construction program. This scheme end the persecution of farmers by
middlemen.
Third, in 2003, former President Chavez launched a new program: Mission Mercal. This is an
act of him when the Venezuelan chamber of commerce (Fedecmaras) staged a lockout of
employees. Food companies, which are mostly controlled by foreign capital, helped run the lockout.
Supermarkets are also many closed. Venezuelans food crisis. With the program Mission Mercal, the
Chavez government built thousands of grocery stores subsidized government by selling meat, fish,
eggs, milk, cheese, bread, cereals, pasta, rice, flour, tomato sauce, fruit, coffee, margarine, oil, sugar,
and salt. The price is 39% below the price of similar goods in a private Supermarket. In Mercal, the
price of milk powder only 7.89 bolivar, while in the private market price reached 17 bolivars. Mission
Mercal is purchasing food products directly to farmers Venezuela. Import is only permitted if the food
was not produced by farmers Venezuela. They cut the distribution process, eliminating the
intermediary agents and avoid hoarding. These stores have a very large storage shed. These stores also
provide new jobs for the people of Venezuela. Although funded and subsidized by the government,
but these stores are run entirely by the people through communal councils.
Fourth, the government also launched Distribucion y Produccion Venezolana de Alimentos
(PDVAL), the government food distribution agency, a network that distributes food and people's
needs at low prices across the country. The program is fully supported by the Venezuelan state oil
company (PDVSA). One form of this program is the food vans transporting food to communities
(villages). Mission Mercal also organized a soup kitchen to provide a cheap and nutritious food to the
Venezuelan people. Meat at a low price, there are even free ones, are distributed through this Mercal
mission. This is to support the government's program to improve the nutritional quality of the people.
Now, even if there is a global food crisis Venezuela do not fall in the crisis, the evidence
according to data from the FAO in 2015 the proportion of people whose food shortages in Venezuela
is below 5%. By 2015 Venezuela had achieved two international hunger targets. The first, reducing
the number of undernourished people to half by 2015 in the commitment of the World Food Summit
(WFS) in Rome on 1996. Second, reach the first target of MDG's by reducing the proportion of
people who suffer from hunger by half from 1990-2015.
Venezuela maintain the rate of undernourishment at below 5% by increasing its national
interventions and its level of international cooperation. Solutions for Comittee on World Food
Security (CFS) is what has been done by Venezuela to initiating SANA on 16 April 2015, a new
cooperation program created by the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela and the Food and Agriculture
Organization of the United Nations (FAO), aims to Strengthen the fight against hunger in Latin
America and the Caribbean. This triangular cooperation programme on Food and Nutritional Security
and Sovereignty for Latin America and the Caribbean will operate with special emphasis in the
member countries of the ALBA Alliance as well as the 21 member countries of the Petrocaribe
Agreement.
 SANA will focus on three main components. The first is the provision of technical support to
the main regional initiatives to eliminate hunger, such as CELAC Plan for Food and Nutrition
Security and the Eradication of Hunger. The second component of SANA aims to strengthen social
movements by training leaders and rural organisations to enable them to participate in the formulation
and implementation of policies and plans on food security. The third component of SANA will work
with rural and family-based organisations and governments to create exchange spaces and
complementary marketing of food and food products.
Venezuela could serve as a role model to eliminate hunger and undernourishment at below
5% for the countries of Latin America and the Caribbean or even all countries that have not achieving
the MDG's.