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Chavez kicked off the program chatting with workers at a state-financed cattle ranch. The self-proclaimed "revolutionary" spent much of Sunday's show discussing the need to develop "idle" lands as a means of boosting agricultural production, which has diminished in recent years. "We must advance quicker with the recuperation of land," Chavez said, stressing that the government must make more land available to the poor. Chavez instructed government-friendly mayors and state governors "to travel on horseback and on foot, day and night" in search of lands that have not been put to adequate use under government standards that define when officials can initiate expropriations. The government says it is redistributing large estates and other land that is not adequately used. Critics contend the land seizures have hurt productive farms, thus cutting agricultural production and forcing the oil-exporting country to boost food imports. Opposition leader Pablo Perez, a state governor who hopes to challenge Chavez in an Oct. 7 presidential election, strongly criticized the government's agriculture initiatives Sunday, noting that oil-rich Venezuela imports much more food than it produces. "We must create an axis of development that not only provides a supply for Venezuelans, but also to export to other countries, and put an end to the government's importation policy," Perez said during a visit the agriculture-dependent state of Merida.
[Associated
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