Venezuela

General Information

· Main climates: Tropical Wet and Dry, Tropical Wet and Dry at 600 m above sea, Tropical Wet, Tropical Steppe and Semiarid

· Total land area: 91 205 000 ha

· Internal renewable water resources: 200 km³

· GNP per capita, 1998: PPP$ 5 706

· Main food consumed: Maize, Oil & fat, Sugar & honey, Wheat, Fruits

· Rice supply, 1999: 23.3 kg paddy/capita/year

Basic Statistics

Producing Zones and Cropping Seasons

Rice is grown in only 5 provinces/zones in the country as shown in the following table.

Two rice crops are grown in a year

Production Practices

The following figure show that rice is grown only under irrigated condition

Rice-rice and rice-other crops (sorghum, maize, oil seed crops, and cotton) are main cropping systems. Rice production is highly mechanised. Most of planted varieties belong to indica type. In the late 1970s, CICA 4 was widely planted. Other high yielding varieties have been then released for cultivation.

Land preparation is done under wet conditions. Broadcasting of pre-germinated rice seed to wet field is the main method of crop establishment. Traditionally aeroplane is used for seeding and other cultural operations. However, Broadcasting by hand and small equipment has become more and more popular to reduce cost. Farmers applied high doses of fertilizers and other agro-chemicals to rice.

Constraints and Issues of Sustainable Production

There are several constraints to sustainable rice production in Venezuela. Following are the majors:

• Rice Hoja blanca virus, Blast, Brown spots and Sogata insect

• Weed and Red rice competition

• Iron toxicity, poor internal and external drainage due to heavy soils in Portuguesa and Guarico

• Yield decline in intensive irrigated areas

• Yield potentials of present irrigated varieties have reached a plateau.

• The following table show the costs of rice production

Rice yields in the country are among the highest under tropical climate areas. Sustainable rice production would require, therefore, new varieties with higher yielding potential and new approach in crop management such as the Integrated Crop Management - Ricecheck system.

Research and Development Institutes

· Estacion Experimental Barinas Torunos, Sistema de Riego Santo Domingo, Km. 10 Barinas Edo. Barinas

· Estacion Experimental de Araure A.P. 102 Carretera Araube Acarigua Portuguesa

· Estacion Experimental de Los Llanos A.P. 14 Bancos de San Pedro Calabozo Guarico

· Fundacion Servicio para la Agricultura Estacion Experimental de Cagua Cagua Aragua

· Centro Nacional Investigaciones Agropecuarias FONIAP Fondo Nacional de Investigaciones Agropecuarias A.P. 4653 Zona Universitaria, Via El Limon 2101 Maracay Aragua Phone: 492491 Telex: 48277 SIRCA VC Fax: (043) 454320