One of the myths currently being spun with care and malice abroad by opposition think tanks, such as VenEconomy or Veneconomia is that state companies and expropriated farms are "unproductive, highly political, inefficient and badly administered."
Robert "Toby" Bottome's Veneconomy churns out three articles a week attacking the government's economic record and (as far as I can tell), the government has not launched any counter-offensive in English to combat such lies, as I discovered when I visited the Ana Soto Zamorian farm in Bobare (Lara State).
Thanks to National Lands Institute (INTI) agrarian technicians we were able to visit the farm and talk to workers. The first thing that struck me was the size of the valley. Unlike other agrarian areas, lands around Bobare have been the source of permanent conflict between descendants of the Gayon indians and outsiders producing legal papers claiming ownership.
The land in question was claimed and plot by plot taken over fraudulently by Guatimosin Silva ... in 2007, INTI recovered Silva's lands -- a typical latifundio -- which were idle or rented out to third parties to farm. INTI paid Silva for all installed assets such as water wells and appliances.
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