 Welcome to what the F is going on in Latin America and the Caribbean, Code Pink's weekly YouTube program of hot news out of the region. In partnership with Friends of Latin America, Massachusetts Peace Action, and Task Force on the Americas, we broadcast every week at 4.30 p.m. Pacific, 7.30 p.m. Eastern on Code Pink YouTube Live. This week we're coming to you on Thursday versus our regularly scheduled Wednesday. This episode is titled Food Sovereignty, Venezuela's Che Guevara community. The crisis in Ukraine has created conditions for loss of farming production and global food distribution. Already there exists a shortage of fertilizer and an increase in energy costs that will affect food production, transportation, and distribution. Today is the first in a series of conversations that we will have about the importance of food sovereignty and how different countries, organizations, and institutions are attempting to guarantee the human right to food. Our guests today are Felipe Venagas and Ilma Rodriguez of the commune Che Guevara and the Union Comunera in Venezuela. Translation will be provided by the Simón Bolívar Institute. Welcome, Felipe and Ilma. So let's start today. Why don't we share with our audience what the Che Guevara commune is, what your focus of work is, how it developed, and what the two of you specifically do within the commune. The socials commune Che Guevara, Mesajulia, it's located in the state of Merida at the south of the Maracaibo Lake. This commune is made up by 14 community councils and by two social enterprises. Our commune basically produces coffee and cocoa and we're about 1,500 families that are mostly dedicated to the agricultural work. So we collect, our families collect coffee and cocoa and what the commune does is to try to obtain the best price for our production. Is the production for domestic or export consumption? The production is for local and national consumption. So the idea of the commune is to socialize that production by generating better working conditions for the communities and at this territory. Out of this experience, the community is now participating in a wider space for gathering, which is what we call today the communal union, the Unión Comunera. This space just groups 60 communes from all over the country in a wider space. The communal union basically poses the idea of widening the economic and political working sphere of the communes at the national level. So in the same way that a commune involves several community councils, the communal union basically groups different communes, giving it a wider territorial space of action. Is the union of communes all food production, agricultural based or is it a mix of industries? So the union of communes groups different types of communes throughout the, it's really a territorial type of organization where you can have communes from both city or from rural areas. So it involves a wider range of action. The idea of the union of communes that we can generate strength in all aspects of production and that you can have both industrialization as well as distribution of products. This is like very impressive. So let me ask, this is clearly for many in our audience, a really good economic structure to develop domestic production in all forms. And also it's an excellent tool for combating unilateral coercive measures or sanctions, as more commonly known. How do you see your role in that? I'm sure it's extraordinarily important. Unilateral sanctions have affected the sources of economics in all throughout the country. At this moment of crisis, the commune has really been a space for resistance to these actions. So through the communes, family agriculture has been a very key in providing greens and vegetables and to strengthen all the food sources during this time where the supplies were being blocked and so that the markets could be provided for when there was lack of cereals and other type of food that was coming in from outside. Can you share with us how much your commune specifically, but the communal system in general, supplies or produces food, how much food is produced for Venezuela and talk about some of the distribution issues or some of the challenges you have in food distribution specifically related to fuel and in keeping transportation vehicles functioning because we all know a lot of, for example, for trucks that it's difficult to import tires, batteries and those sort of things, although we're all fully aware that that is improving through trade with non-US aligned countries as well. You know, mainly, as you know, we communes, deal mainly with agriculture, but it is the oil industry, which is the main source of income for Venezuela. So the first affectation of the sanctions has been, for example, the lack of spare parts for the oil enterprises, which is key for the whole country. So the second affectation is the lack of spare parts and that affect distribution for us. We see trucks being affected, tractors paralyzed machinery because of this crisis or that creates a crisis in the agricultural sector. And we also saw a crisis in the supply of fuel due to the sanctions as well, which meant that it also paralyzed our whole industry and our distribution of food and other products. So the third hit that we get is it comes from healthcare because obviously as part of our productive small farms, they're being productive by the people, the people are the ones that work them. So if the whole country is being affected by not having enough supplies for health, one has a psychological and a physical effect on producers themselves, on our small farmers. And that is a great impact as well. So this is just really so important for our audience to understand how wide the ripple out effect of sanctions and there's so many people think it's simply sanctioning government officials and corporate leadership, et cetera, but this really goes right down to the community level and affects all aspects of life. And I think what you're sharing with us is just so important to see. It's amazing what you have achieved. And I wonder, I understand that your commune also helps in training other communes and educating and training other communes, specifically agriculture. Can you share with us what that training and people to people work involves across Venezuela? So the objective of the Argelia Laja Brigade is the growth of the Union of Communions as a network and as the unity of all these communal forces. The brigade basically undergoes or tends to three phases, one of exploration, one of agitation and one of consolidation. First, the exploration, they go to the territory so that they can make an assessment of the state in which the territories are. OK, so after assessing, after doing the diagnosis of the problems and the situation in different regions, there's the face of agitation or activation of the territory where basically these members of the brigade, which are trained militants from the communes, they're trained in the productive process or trained also with political and ideological education and they're trained in community organizing so they can make sure and they go and look at how they can create policies that can guarantee the well-being of the communes. So this allows us that then at the territories, people are trained in community organizing and political education and organization so that you end up with community work and building the relations among the local communities into how to make these policies come into effect and be put into action. So the idea is that you consolidate these community networks and these community relations so that they become eventually lasting and they're able to remain for longer time. So once this training brigade goes through a commune and helps organize and consolidate this commune and takes it to that consolidated level, it helps add into a network of communes so that these new relations are built between the different communes and then which will then allow productive forces to develop further. That is the main objective of the Union of Communes, this is the basic principle of it. It's very impressive and it's really it's so heartening to see something so positive in community building across the entire country where your work goes, it's just really very impressive. I'm assuming and perhaps I'm wrong, I'm assuming that the communes are all people owned, people operated clearly, the labor is all provided and the ownership is by the people as well, is that correct? It's social ownership I guess is the correct way to phrase it. So yes, the communes are social organizations, they're born out of the grass and they're born out of the grassroots. This was of course a policy promoted by President Chavez, but these are organizations that are born out of grassroots and base organizations and to basically consolidate what is the people's power, the people themselves being organized into a popular organization. So the people have control, the people have control of the means of production, the land, the distribution, all of it versus the privatization of farming specifically that we see in the United States and Western Europe. Can you, this is very exciting to share? Yes, so yes that's exactly right. The idea is that we own these social organizations own the means of production because in fact they are grassroots organizations, they're basically peasant or rural worker organizations, more farmers that we unite in order to strengthen ourselves in this time of crisis so that we can produce food for ourselves so that we can produce, we can have productive exchanges between communes and then the union of communes basically elevates this from a regional level or local level to a more regional and even a nationwide level. So what is, so you have the union elevates, collectively elevates all of your work across the country. What is the relationship between the union and the government in Caracas? Is it a symbiotic relationship? There's a lot of support going up and a lot of support and encouragement from the national government as well. So just to make something clear, the union of communes doesn't group all of the unions in the country because there are over 3,000 communes in the country. Some have been successful, some are stalled, some have not been successful but we are a group of some of the communes. So we have been, so the union of communes has been around for only three weeks. We've started this organization March 3rd and 4th so we are currently on this approach towards the government, building this relationship with the government and building this relationship of support. We are seeking that support so that we can jointly build this communal socialism which is the idea that Chavez proposed. So right now we're in that process of building that relationship because we've just been created. Communes are also a form of self-government so it's sort of the joining of both constituted power as well as constituent power which we're trying to put into place. Well the community control and ownership and management really gives you a lot of sovereignty in the production of everything. I mean for you specifically for food but for everything if given how these communes are growing and spreading, it's really a phenomenal project and very encouraging and a really, really terrific option to be talking about right now given the changes that are happening on the planet particularly with food production and distribution but you know with supply chains in general across across the country. It's really a really very impressive project that you're working on and it's a real honor to talk with you this afternoon. Is there anything that, is there anything you'd like to share with our audience before we wrap up today's program? Anything that you particularly want to share that needs to be said to our audience? Well I would just say as the last comment you know we are the union of communes. It's not an absolute thing. It's not all wonderful. We're still in the process of making this space. Of course there are still problems that we have to deal with but it is it is important that this is a space where we can now strive towards that communal socialism that we want to build. You know that we want to make a reality throughout all our territories. You know strong and consolidated community organizations so that we can have you know improvements for for our economy and for our way of living. Thank you so much. Thank you so much Philippe and Imar. What a what a pleasure to meet both of you and to talk with you today. I'm really so I'm so impressed with your work and it's just such wonderful inspiration and encouragement for for seeking an alternative and and it seems to be you know a successful alternative. So so thank you for your time today. So I want to remind our audience that you've been watching what the F is going on in Latin America and the Caribbean CodePings weekly YouTube program of hot news out of the region. We broadcast every Wednesday 4 30 p.m. Pacific 7 30 p.m. Eastern on Code Pink YouTube live. Also be sure to catch Code Pink radio which broadcasts every Thursday 11 a.m. Eastern on WBAI out in New York City and WPFW out of Washington DC. Both programs can be found on Apple podcasts as well. So thank you everyone and we'll see you next week.