A former head of trading with Cargill says increased stability in Venezuela could mean additional opportunities for U.S. agriculture in the long term.
“They’re a natural buyer of U.S. ag products.”
Jeff Kazin, who oversaw the company’s refined-oil business in the region in the late 2010’s, says it’ll be a long road.
“How do you operate in a country that’s relatively lawless?” He says, “If you had a confinement hog building, you could raise pigs, and when they were ready, they were stolen.”
Kazin, who now farms in Ohio and is co-founder of AgrisAcademy, says supporting the Venezuelan population is key.
“When you make a population hungry, they become subservient to you.” He says, “Feeding the population and making sure that the first priority of life, food and shelter, is taken care of is a big first step.”
Despite the challenges, he tells Brownfield the country still presents a long-term market opportunity for a variety of U.S. products.
“Our rice farmers desperately need a market.” He says, “They’ll buy bean meal. In the meantime, they could be pork buyers, they could be poultry buyers. Those are staple crops. Plus veg oil. They actually eat a fair amount of pasta. So, your Durham wheat farmers up in the Dakotas.”
Kazin says Venezuela’s food system has continued to deteriorate in recent years, so re-establishing domestic production would also be a priority.
The USDA says in 2024, U.S. agricultural product exports to Venezuela totaled $800 million, and the United States was the largest supplier of agricultural and food products by volume with 39 percent market share.
