Issue 2:2 | Excerpt
::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::

Venezuela, Socialism & Cacao:
Is socialism cultivating the future of cacao or
letting it languish on the trees?

The humidity hangs heavy like a blanket over Barlovento. It’s as
though the air itself were weighed down by history—a history of dark,
sinewy limbs toiling away in the steamy jungles of Venezuela,
producing some of the world’s most prized cacao beans . . . Barlovento
is as rich culturally as it is poor economically, and that has made it the
focus of an effort by President Hugo Chávez—Venezuela’s iconic
leader who has cast himself as the defender of the poor and
downtrodden—to try to help local cacao farmers get more value out of
their rich, dark beans.

“Venezuela will again become a cacao power,” Chávez says,
promising to return the country to its glory days when it was the world’
stop cacao exporter sending beans by the shipload to royal courts in
Europe. This was before the cacao industry fell to the wayside with
the discovery of massive oil deposits in the early 1900s. Today,
Venezuela produces roughly 23,000 metric tons of cacao annually
(less than one percent of the world’s production) although some 25
percent of this total is believed to be smuggled in from Colombia and
Ecuador.  | CONTINUED



::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::