00:00Venezuela on the move visited the state of Tachira to learn about the experience of agricultural productive communes that with
00:08a spirit of struggle or straining food serenity. Our colleague Michel Ramirez brings us the details.
00:17On our journey through western Venezuela, we entered the state of Tachira, a region noted for its border identity and
00:23agricultural importance.
00:24It is a long-standing and major producer of high-quality coffee, sugar cane and vegetables.
00:33And here there are communes dedicated to those crops and agricultural production. One example is the El Sueño de Hugo
00:39Chávez commune located in the remote, mountainous village of La Blanquita in the rural area of Santa Ana.
00:51The commune members are engaged in farm work. Through collective effort, they have created their own productive farms where they
00:56mainly cultivate coffee and cacao. With their own hands, they husk the coffee cherries and process them using traditional methods.
01:09Well, here words are superfluous. Just look at what you see there, coffee, cacao. Well, around here in this area,
01:18there used to be very little cacao. And over there, on a farm like that, there were just two or
01:24three cacao trees.
01:25And I've always liked that crop, so I kept planting little by little. And now I have a couple of
01:31cacao trees over there that are already producing. I said that despite economic difficulties, so to speak.
01:46But with just enthusiasm and the desire to keep moving forward, you gradually try to establish the crop with limited
01:54resources. But what matters is the desire to succeed.
02:00I have a coffee nursery there, and I'm also growing cacao. But it's still small. It's a small-scale operation.
02:09Progress for the country comes from working and producing, which boosts the economy.
02:17The raising of tilapia and poultry such as chickens is also part of its production to provide food for its
02:22own residents.
02:27We work together here as a group. My family, which includes my husband and my two children, and the four
02:32of us, run a farm where we grow coffee, cacao plants, plantains, and we have fish fry as well.
02:39We also raise chickens, white bread or chickens. This motivates us to keep going, survive and move forward, and to
02:45produce for other people as well.
02:46We take our products to the municipal market in Cordoba, and well, we are working there on our own initiative,
02:52and that's where we are headed.
02:55For them, production diversification has been key to making progress toward building a self-sufficient community.
03:04In previous years, we have focused on continuing to boost the coffee production, since the coffee industry was one of
03:12the sectors that powered the Venezuelan economy.
03:16And that is why we must not rely on single crops, but rather diversify our production. In other words, not
03:32to rely on monocultures, but to include all kinds of crops in our production units, so that we can continue
03:38to contribute to the country's economy.
03:41And also become a self-sufficient community where we can strengthen the community's productive economy.
03:48This is how the coffee growing region contributes to the state's productive growth, which reached more than 1.2 million
03:54metric tons of harvested and distributed crops over the last two years.
