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<span class="date-display-single">Mon, 06/08/2012</span> </div>
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<div class="glw-authors">By <span class="glwnews-article-location"><a href="/taxonomy/term/4362">Heidi Chow</a></span></div><div class="field field-type-filefield field-field-image">
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<img src="http://www.greenleft.org.au/sites/default/files/imagecache/frontpage-lead-article/venezuela_food_yvke_mundial.jpg" alt="" title="" class="imagecache imagecache-frontpage-lead-article imagecache-default imagecache-frontpage-lead-article_default" width="140" height="93" /> </div>
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<p>Arriving in Caracas, Venezuela’s capital, the first thing you notice is the extensive swathes of mountainside covered with poorly built, crowded, ad-hoc homes ― known locally as the barrios. </p>
<p>Caracas’s shanty-town barrios were built in response to the influx of migrants from the countryside during the 20th century. As Venezuela struck oil in the 1920s, it became easier and cheaper to use oil money to import foodstuffs. Many small farmers lost their livelihoods and poured into the capital in search of work.</p>
<p><a href="http://www.greenleft.org.au/node/51807" target="_blank">read more</a></p>