Empty refrigerator shelves are pictured at a Makro supermarket in Caracas, Venezuela, August 4, 2015. Venezuelan supermarkets are increasingly being targeted by looters, as swollen lines and prolonged food shortages spark frustration in the OPEC nation struggling with an economic crisis. Photo by Carlos Garcia Rawlins/Reuters
Wall Street Journal: Venezuela Is Starving
Once Latin America’s richest country, Venezuela can no longer feed its people, hobbled by the nationalization of farms as well as price and currency controls
YARE, Venezuela— Jean Pierre Planchart, a year old, has the drawn face of an old man and a cry that is little more than a whimper. His ribs show through his skin. He weighs just 11 pounds.
His mother, Maria Planchart, tried to feed him what she could find combing through the trash—scraps of chicken or potato. She finally took him to a hospital in Caracas, where she prays a rice-milk concoction keeps her son alive.
“I watched him sleep and sleep, getting weaker, all the time losing weight,” said Ms. Planchart, 34 years old. “I never thought I’d see Venezuela like this.”
Her country was once Latin America’s richest, producing food for export. Venezuela now can’t grow enough to feed its own people in an economy hobbled by the nationalization of private farms, and price and currency controls.
Read more ....
Update #1: Venezuela Full of Strife With Empty Refrigerators (VOA)
Update #2: Amid hungry, violent looting, Venezuelan shopkeepers fortify their businesses (Miami Herald)
WNU Editor: There was a time when Venezuela was actually an exporter of food .... no more now. When I first started this blog I mentioned more than once that Venezuela's nationalisation of its businesses would result in severe shortages in the future when the economics of running these enterprises no longer made sense. Well .... that time is now .... and we are specifically seeing it in the agri-food sector. Here is an easy prediction .... it is going to get worse.
