The new Agroalba project and the new PetroCaribe modality for the production of oil, gas and derivatives, proposals made by the president of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela, Nicolás Maduro Moros, during the Summit with the Heads of State and Government of the Bolivarian Alliance of Our Americas-People’s Trade Treaty (ALBA-TCP), held in Caracas for the 20th anniversary of its foundation, will allow supporting the peoples and governments of the Caribbean and South America through mechanisms of solidarity, production and sovereignty.
The great economic productive project Agroalba is an idea of President Maduro to reinforce sovereignty and organic and healthy food for all the peoples of Latin America, the Caribbean and Africa.
In this regard, the head of the Ministry of People’s Power for Agriculture and Lands, Menry Fernández Pereira, explained that the project is extremely important, seeking the strategic association of all countries where Venezuela initially has 210,000 productive hectares for agricultural, livestock and/or forestry activities. To date, three countries have joined, two from the Americas and one from Africa, with which letters of intent have been signed, with the ministers of agriculture of Antigua and Barbuda, of Saint Vincent and the Grenadines and the African nation Sao Tome and Principe.
Fernández said that these authorities were amazed by the project, and soon Venezuela will move forward to dynamize from the productive fact a new agroecological model, a new sustainable model that allows guaranteeing the agro-food and nutritional security and sovereignty of the people.
He announced that the countries that sign the Agroalba agreements will be able to have win-win mechanisms without exposure, that allow the export of their products, of everything they process, of everything they produce. Additionally, the countries are interested in a “Land Bank” and that Venezuelan investors can move to any ALBA country to develop the productive activity: “I believe that an instrument like this is hopeful, and Agroalba in the future will mean what PetroCaribe meant in its time,” predicted the Minister for Agriculture.
For his part, the rector of the University of Hydrocarbons and former Minister of Agriculture, Wilmar Castro Soteldo, stated that President Maduro managed to formalize this extraordinary idea at this summit, which is now supported by the future financial reinforcement of the ALBA Bank, to promote the issue of production in the respective countries, the inputs and raw materials, for their transformation in their own country:
“The issue of biosecurity is very important, being able to harmonize all the regulations and all the legislation corresponding to the issue of food and input transit security that allows for faster food production, between countries that have the surface area to be able to produce it and those that do not have sufficient surface area, because most of the Caribbean islands have difficulties with fertile land to produce items other than what they have traditionally produced.”
Castro Soteldo said that Venezuela is available, as well as other ALBA countries, such as Nicaragua, which has enormous potential in the production of legumes, and in this order of ideas the potential of countries in various areas.
“Venezuela, as a result of the unilateral measures, is practically obliged to exploit, in the good sense of the word, this enormous agro-productive potential that it has always had and, in this sense, it became a kind of reference for the Caribbean countries and, certainly, for months and even years, individual negotiations between countries and experiences on this knowledge in the case of agriculture have been taking place,” he said.
Regarding the new PetroCaribe modality, the Secretary General of the Alliance, Jorge Arreaza explained: “It is a new modality that no one will be able to veto, that no one will be able to block, and that gives additional sovereignty to Venezuela and the ALBA countries, because it is to produce in the territory of the Bolivarian Alliance, and to satisfy the energy needs of the ALBA countries and also have resources for social investment.”
The ALBA senior executive stated that it is important, as well as food sovereignty, also the energy security of the region through the reactivation of a mechanism such as PetroCaribe, which had been significantly undermined by coercive measures.
He confirmed that the criminal measures of the United States (US) and the European Union (EU) against Venezuela affected Venezuelan production and, in particular, torpedoed the effectiveness of PetroCaribe, indirectly damaging the situation of the countries that became part of this great agreement for the supply of oil and energy. He said that the member states clarified at the Summit that oil was not being given away, but that 50% of the oil bill was paid immediately and the other 50% in fairly flexible terms for the countries, which allowed that money that, if they had had to pay it in full to any transnational oil supplier, could be used for education, health, agriculture and housing, among other social areas:
“What is President Maduro telling us now, in a supportive and strategic way?” emphasized Arreaza, responding immediately that, since it has not been possible to reactivate the previous scheme of distribution and payment of crude oil and derivatives, work should be done in Venezuela to produce oil.
“(He says) that these countries can find international financing and, in a consortium of ALBA countries, come to produce here in Venezuela, where there is oil, and take their own production as any international oil company does in the country. It is a new modality that no one will be able to veto, that no one will be able to block,» finally reiterated Arreaza.
