Venezuela, Food Shortages and Urban Farming

I just read this in the Washington Post:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/worldviews/wp/2016/11/01/venezuela-is-telling-hungry-city-dwellers-to-grow-their-own-food/

As food continues to get more and more scarce, the Venezuelan government is encouraging people to grow their own food.  Available bits of land are being tilled and planted as the food security situation continues to deteriorate.

I find this interesting on a number of levels.  While this has been discussed in another thread about how to hide your food forest from potential marauding hordes, I think it merit enough significance for its own thread.

First, people are not rioting.  There is still a strong, well-fed police/military/security structure.  These people will be the last ones to go hungry.  So while people may occasionally break into a store or warehouse, there isn't widespread social unrest.  People continue to wait in line for hours, only to find out that there isn't anything for them to buy once they reach the front of the line.  Tomorrow, they just get up a bit earlier still --- only to wait.  This mirrors what took place in the failing Soviet Union (2+ decades ago): people complained about the lack of basic goods, but they complained quietly even as they stood in line for hours.  So the expectation that people will go crazy and turn into marauding zombies just does not bear scrutiny.  

Second, people are resourceful and resilient.  The government is say, "Plant veggies", as if people hadn't already considered that.  Perhaps this is their way to try to act as if it were their idea—people are already turning their yards and balconies into gardens, so why not take the credit for it and say, "that was our idea".  While the majority of urban dwellers have never grown a cabbage in their life, this isn't brain surgery.  Take seed, place in soil, add water, wait.  People will figure it out, and the agrarian knowledge will quickly pass through social networks.  "Hey, how do I get my tomatoes to grow like yours?  Pee around the base of them?  Are you sure?  OK -- thanks."

Third, this isn't a new pattern.  If you read the history of the siege of St. Petersburg or Stalingrad, when outside food sources were closed-off, people quickly converted all available land for agricultural purposes.  In the case of Stalingrad, the siege lasted for something like 1000 days.  People resorted to cannibalism and all sorts of horrific acts, but there were not riots.  They grew whatever they could.  When Cuba was embargoed by the United States in 1962, they responded in a similar way: every available space was converted into gardens and farms.  Venezuela is not under siege, per se, but the lack of social mobility and economic freedom has "captured" people and prevents them from picking up and moving elsewhere.  Where will you go?  So you convert a 5-gal pale into a medium to grow a few cucumbers.  You convert your patio into space for greens, chickens, whatever.  People have done it repeatedly throughout history.

Finally, it is relatively inexpensive.  Soil is all around us.  Biomass is available to convert to mulch or compost, you just have to gather it and put it to use.  Urine is plentiful—a tremendously accessible source for nitrogen.  Buckets, old bathtubs, used boards, scraps of metal . . . these become the building blocks for planters and trellis's.  Seeds are cheap.  Water, particularly in a place like Venezuela, is inexpensive.  God gives us the sun for free.  Gardening is a low-barrier, high return on investment proposition.

Frankly, it shouldn't take a crisis like this to get people to consider how they might grow a greater percentage of their needed calories just steps from their back door.

Good idea Marco,
Cuba used a similar situation to develop permaculture as the new normal.  Their society is much healthier for it.
John S
PDX OR

Four years after this was written, we were hit by a pandemic and associated supply chain disruptions. There was a lot of news about people starting to garden seriously. I saw neighbors growing squash in the front yards. I wonder how long that effect lasts. Are people still doing that or have they mostly slipped back into complacence. Is it always a boom and bust thing? What's the level of traction? Anyone know if this has been studied?

Back in 2020 my extended family asked me to create a new garden for them with a massive deer fence. Since then they have stopped gardening that area, so my wife has taken it over. She grows a lot of food there. We were gardening before, but we took advantage of the situation to ratchet up our efforts.

Interesting question Christopher. A little look at google trends suggests that the pandemic may have had a lasting effect. I did a comparison for "grow food" and "grow vegetables" and there seems to be a step change in about April 2020. That suggests there is still a lot of interest in food security.

I suspect that the old saw, "location, location, location" is a big factor, followed up by whether the learning curve was manageable by the people who attempted this.

Some of the things people need to think about on an individual and regional basis:
1. Ecosystem: what grows well and is it a calorie crop or a nutritional crop?
2. History: what did Indigenous people do to provide themselves with year round food in the area?
3. People: are the neighbors on-board? Will people eat what you can grow without being starving first? Are people physically capable of doing the tasks needed?

I am happy to live in an area where people mostly recognize the words "permaculture" and "edible landscaping", but unfortunately, many also don't seem to really believe that we aren't food secure if the shipping industry can't deliver. Most of my friends grow at least some food, but I wouldn't say that I'm seeing year over year gains in local food landing on people's plates.

It will be interesting to see if the recent Hurricane in they USA which I expect will massively interfere with trucking for several weeks at least, will spur another spike in interest in growing food? Despite all the complaints I hear from some places about food prices being too high in North America, I suspect that they still aren't high enough to get people planting serious "kitchen gardens" the way it was normal to do 100 years ago. Many communities have minimal allotment gardens available, and where I live, those plots are rarely more than a 4 x 8 foot bed per person. Despite that, I have heard of people growing an amazing amount of food on a balcony if they're lucky enough to have sufficient sunshine and water. I would love to see more of these people tracked down and publicized widely!

Just anecdotal on my end, but I have seen an increase in kitchen gardens in my general area. More public growing of food and planting fruit trees.
I think part of that is the fairly extreme food cost increases here and we live in an area with lots of farms and it's pretty easy to get some results with low inputs and skills.
On the downside, prices for starts, supplies and seeds are also through the roof. I was so glad I was able to do seed starting for the first time this year because there were almost no cheap plant starts around. ( except for when stuff went on clearance, but then you had to get lucky on the timing and it was pretty random)

I have also noticed a big increase in people selling both plants and grown food on fb marketplace. Many trying for grocery store prices, but there are still a few winners to be found. I was happy to get a big bunch of comfrey roots from a guy a couple of roads over!

We have a lot of shade on our small parcel, and we talk a lot about what food we could grow that would actually provide some real calories. General advice for food is leafy greens, nuts, and berries, and we do that. Squirrels get the hazelnuts, the effers. They’re all named Kevin. Effing Kevin.

Potatoes are so varied and are able to grow in so many different less-than-ideal environments (I recommend everyone find a copy of 1493 at their local library and read the section on the potato) that I actually wonder if there are any that anyone knows might actually have some shade tolerance.

-D

Daniel Ackerman wrote:Squirrels get the hazelnuts, the effers.  -D

I have a friend who traps and eats squirrels. There are many areas where the population is pushing the carrying capacity, but one would have to check local rules about such things. (In my area, they are an invasive species. They are very good at stealing wild bird eggs, so culling is quietly encouraged. )

Marco,

Excellent, prescient observations that I wholeheartedly agree with.  I have only two very minor quibbles.

Quibble #1

I think you are referring to the siege of Leningrad.  There was no specific siege of Stalingrad, but Stalingrad was the site of what is perhaps the largest land battle in the history of the world and many horrific things occurred (because of course they did).  But everything you describe did happen at Leningrad.

Quibble #2

OK, this is REALLY a quibble.  You stated that the fall of the Soviet Union (or at least referenced events pertaining to it) as happening 2+ decades ago.  Actually, the fall of the Berlin Wall (which is as good a point in history to reference as the date of the “fall”) happened 35 years ago Saturday!  I was a freshman in college and I vividly remember coming home to my dorm and hearing someone say that the Berlin Wall was falling down which I thought they meant figuratively.  NOPE!  I saw hundreds of people breaking down the wall.  It was one of the most vivid memories I had in college.

But like I said, minor quibbles and the substance of everything that you said was spot on.

Eric