The Venezuelan Government recently initiated expropriation procedures in relation to a plant owned by Cargill, reports Upside Down World. The transnational food company, which recorded nearly $4 billion in net earnings last year, was found to be modifying all its rice so as to evade price controls on basic food items.
Vice-Minister of Agriculture and Land, Richard Canán, reported the results of a week-long investigation which was carried out by Venezuela’s Institute in Defence of People’s Access to Goods and Services (INDEPABIS) at the request of rice producers in the region around the processing plant in Portugesa state. ‘[Cargill] is not even producing one single kilogram of regulated rice, but they do produce 2,400 tons of pre-cooked rice, which is not subject to regulation,’ he explained. INDEPABIS also found approximately 18,000 tons of non-modified rice stored in the plant’s warehouse.
