Story By: Alex Cope, Sub Editor: Joseph Golder, Agency: Central European News

Venezuelan schoolkids are being forced to become farmers at break time as the government installs hen houses and vegetable patches at schools to combat food shortages.

The country’s president Nicolas Maduro revealed the plans during an event with students broadcast by the state’s radio and television channels and the president says the plan will teach the young student to “produce with their hands”.

He said: “I am putting you in charge of the school vegetable patches, guys. Every primary school and secondary school has space, some have a big space, those with a big space we will also place animals there, around 200 or 300 hens.”

The president said that the vegetable patches and hens can help provide food for the school kitchens and said the First Lady Cilia Flores also has a hen house which she looks after every day.

He said: “They lay their eggs and we collect those eggs and distribute them among our relatives. It is marvellous.”

The President claimed the current crop of Venezuelan youngsters had had “the productivity capacity crippled” so it was important for them to produce “with their hands”, adding: “Humans developed, evolved and developed their brains.

“I have told the Vice President: let’s get a million hens and take them to the high schools and primary schools, it’s learning.”

He called on the Minister of Food Carlos Leal Telleria to “support” the plan but it is unclear when the programme will begin or if it will be provided with a budget.

Venezuela, the country with the largest oil reserves on the planet, is going through a major economic and political crises with cyclical food shortages and hyperinflation. The opposition, led by Juan Guaido, blame Maduro’s economic policies for the crises and have repeatedly tried to remove him from power.

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