Agriculture in Venezuela

Agriculture in Venezuela has a much smaller share of the economy than in any other Latin American country. After the discovery of oil in Venezuela in the early 20th century to the 1940s, agriculture has declined rapidly, and with the beginning of large-scale industrial development in the 1940s, agriculture and land reform was largely neglected by successive governments (although a 1960 land reform law did see 200,000 families receive land, largely in the early 1960s). Since 1999, under the Bolivarian Revolution of President Hugo Chávez, agriculture has had a somewhat higher priority. Agriculture in Venezuela accounts for approximately 3% of GDP, 10% of the labor force, and at least a quarter of Venezuela's land area.

Venezuela imports most of its food, mainly from Colombia and the United States.^[1]