Sanctity of Private Property and Food Security

How does a tropical paradise with a population of 35 people per square mile and a land rich in resources manage to starve?

Easy, they abolish "private property".

Why not plant a garden?

Red Beans are a staple of Latin American diets and, like all beans, are easy to grow.

Planting a garden seems like a no-brainer, right?

The problem is two-fold.  Authorities can confiscate the garden any time they want.

This institutional weakness has generated a great deal of legal uncertainty, and nationalization is out of control. Food companies, for example, can be declared “strategic” and of public interest at any time, and therefore confiscated without meeting the applicable legal requirements. These companies and large supermarket chains cannot produce or distribute their products according to their own operative plans, but according to the orders dictated unilaterally by the central government.   -Source

Do you suppose they will confiscate it before Little Red Hen plows it?  Nope.

Do you suppose they will confiscate it before LRH plants it?  Nope.

Do you suppose they will confiscate it before LRH weeds it?  Nope.

They will seize it just before it is time to harvest.  After which time LRH becomes an unpaid employee of the State.

The other problem is the lack of civil order.  Crime is rampant.  Going out to hoe your garden is an invitation to get knocked in the head.  If the government does not take your garden the populace  will bypass the middleman and steal everything you sweated all season to bring to harvest.  Years of socialist conditioning has given them an entitlement mentality: "I am not responsible.  Somebody owes me."

Everybody in Venezuela knows this.  That is why almost nobody in Venezuela plants a garden.

Riot: Yes.
Ransack: Yes.
Pillage: Yes.
Emigrate: Yes.
Garden: No.

This situation is not much different that what is happening in Iraq and Syria.  They are coming to Europe and America with much of the same cultural baggage.