Evening star., 1953-12-13
Ambitious Agriculture Program Could Make Venezuela Food Exporter
By WiIIiom Hines

y VubsSbN eUpss~S
TUREN, Venezuelas-The peren-
nial tropical problem Of feeding o
fecund population Is being tackled
with apparent success in the vast
ness of the Orin0co jungle Of Vene-
zuela less than TOO miles north of
the Equator.
Here. where four years ago o
handful of Indians and adventurous
, criolIos hung onto life In an under
growth from which palms shot up
ward 100 feet into the air, more
than / 200 persons Of IS nationals
ties today are farming more than
100000 acres of what has turned
out to be some Of the richest land
on earth. And this is only the be-
ginning. Daily, bulldozers and dy-
namiters push on into the surround
ing jungle, clearing more Of the
fertile black loan that win bring
food to the tables Of Venezuelans in
the burgeoning cities Of the coast
and plains.
Within 20 years, agricultural ex-
perts hope, there will be 10 million
acres of this same la1id-an area
half again as large as Maryland
cleared, planted and producing. If
the final stages OF the project are as
successful as its pioneering phase,
Venezuela will become. by 1875,
something unheard Of in the tropics:
A multicrop exporter Of agricultural
products.
The Economic 'If
The big "if" for Venezuela is the
problem Of keeping her internal
economy on an even keel. Today.
more than so per cent Of the popu-
lation is jammed into cities. This
is about the same as the urban-to-
rural proportion in the United
States. But in North America there
Is a difference: The urban centers
are highly induStrialized and the
rural areas provide food through
relatively efficient mechanical farm
ing. Venezuela's urban population
makes its living In small stores,
craft industries and services, or in
common labor in oil fields near
cities. The rural people. for the
most part, go in only for subsist-
ence farming. The result Is that
Venezuela relies on raw materials
exports petroleum and iron ore)
for her foreign exchange, and i'm
ports much of her food and vir-
tually all of her manufactured con-
stlmer goods.
Today, with the oil wells of Lake
Maracaibo working full blast and
the iron ore starting to come out
of Ell Pao and Cerro Bolivar near
the lower Orinoco River, Venezuela
can afford her present wasteful way
: Of life. But the Specter of fear
hangs always over the Caracas gov
ernment: Something may happen
to cut down on the exports, and
then what will Venezuela do?
Turen Is the Answer
Turen and II other agricultural
centers are the answer. They are
not only what they seem to be, an
agricultural Operation BootStrap";
they are also part Of larger social
plan to improve the quality of Vene-
Zuelan population through controlled
immigration. Venezuelan authori-
ties frankly admit they are in
terested in bleaching out" the coun-
try with infusions of European
blood.
To this end, the Venezuelan gov.
ernment "a military dictatorship
with overtones of social-conscious-
ness) is bringing in thousands of
Europeans to farm the new land of
Portuguese state and other recently
developed farming areas. These
immigrants are lured with almost
unbelievable financial-aid bait, and
for the most part are making a
highly successful go of it.
At the outset of the plan, in 1949,
the Venezuelan government was
fooled by many immigrants. The
plan always has called for close
screening of new residents to estab-
lish their ability to farm. But many
European city-folk lied their way
into the land of promise and
promptly settled in the slums of
Caracas and Maracaibo. Venezuela
screens more carefully nowadays,
with the result that recent immi-
grants actually are settling down on
acreage and making it produce.
One example of what Venezuela
likes to have happen is Fedor
Popov, q broad-faced Ukrainian