![\"\"](\"https:\/\/armando.info\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/12\/03102015-1.jpg\")
-How \r\ndid you confirm that Frito Lay promoted the cultivation?
-The producers. They \r\ntold us that they received money from someone wearing the uniform.
- Is there \r\nany way to confirm that Frito Lay bought or promoted the crop?
-We rely on at \r\nleast 90 testimonials. They all said that a man in Frito Lay's uniform gave them \r\nmoney to produce.<\/p>\n\n\r\n\n
<\/p>\n\n\n
\u201cMalanga Growers\u201d<\/h2>\n\n\n
When \r\none arrives at La Villa del Rosario and asks about the \"malanga<\/I> growers\", \r\nthey all point their fingers to the home of Edicso Acosta, in San Jos\u00e9 area. \r\nThere, on a dead end street, her mother - an old woman of over 70 years old - \r\nsits down to grind coffee by hand right next to a Kodiak truck parked in what is \r\nleft of the yard, under a mango tree. There are 14 sacks of taro, approximately \r\n700 kilos (154 lb), around that trunk, which have been out in the sun for over a \r\nweek and are still fresh to eat.<\/p>\n\n\r\n\n
Edicso \r\nhas all the appearance of a field producer: torn clothes, plastic boots, and a \r\nhat. His role is basic. He buys everything he can from the producers and then \r\nresells it in the wholesale markets in the center of the country. Producers look \r\nfor him because, when they do not have money, he finances the production with \r\nthe only condition that they sell it to him. He always \r\nwins.<\/p>\n\n\r\n\n
Prosperity \r\nis obvious. He has several trucks and employees. There is plenty for him to live \r\nand produce, and although there was a considerable decline in 2014, he never \r\nstopped selling the merchandise. \"When the Colombians left, we had no \r\nproducers,\" he says. \"Only a few began to produce. I refused to leave this \r\nbecause it is the only thing I know how to do.\"<\/p>\n\n\r\n\n
To \r\nreach the crops, you have to travel almost vertical miles of sand road, barely \r\nthree meters (9.84 ft) wide between the wall of the hill and the cliff. Edicso \r\narrives at these allotments on a small Toyota truck like those used by Islamic \r\nState terrorists on the other side of the world. He has six of those. And they \r\nare all his.<\/p>\n\n\r\n\n
You \r\ncan see the taro crops around the mountain chain walls, small plants with large \r\nheart-shaped leaves. Based on Edicso\u2019s experience, the species was brought from \r\nColombia, where they call it malanga<\/I>, and it cannot compete with the \r\nChinese taro produced in the east of the country, or the Venezuelan taro, whose \r\nfields spread throughout Portuguese state. Such crops are all along the dirt \r\nroad of the Las Lajas area, which has a winding river around the road. Las Lajas \r\nis one of the tributaries feeding Los Tres R\u00edos, the largest water reservoir in \r\nZulia state, which supplies its capital, Maracaibo, with a population of over 2 \r\nmillion inhabitants.<\/p>\n\n\n When \r\nthe crop is ready, producers leave the sacks on the edge of the dirt road \r\nwaiting for Edicso\u2019s trucks. Their men pick them up and drive them to La Villa \r\ndel Rosario, where they leave in another truck bound for the states of Lara, \r\nAragua and Trujillo. For the authorities, it is an illegal activity; hence, \r\nEdicso spends about 50,000 bolivars on each trip, to pass the check points on \r\nthe road. The \r\nstruggle of Azul Ambientalista is clear. Based on a study by the Environmental \r\nSecretariat of Zulia state, they warn that there are less than half of the 200 \r\ntributaries registered in the mountain chain in 2000. The investigation showed \r\nthat at least 6,000 hectares (14826.32 acres) were affected, which already \r\npredicts a hydrological crisis in the region due to the drought of the Lake \r\nMaracaibo basin.<\/p>\n\n\r\n\n Although \r\nbiologist Miguel Pietrangeli does not know whether or not Frito Lay is the \r\npromoter of the production, he is against that crop because it is a tuber that \r\nerodes earth. Furthermore, it produces landslides when it rains because it is a \r\nplant planted on the slopes.<\/p>\n\n\r\n\n An \r\nofficial of the National Parks Institute, who supported the protests and \r\ndeforestation allegations, also point the now well-known taro cultivation as the \r\nculprit of the deforestation of over 8,500 million hectares (over 21 million \r\nacres) of the national park. He declared on condition of anonymity - on the \r\nother side of the telephone - that most producers were aliens and that there are \r\nno major censuses. But he insisted in leaving his name out of these lines. He \r\ndid not even wanted to be mentioned as a public official, because those figures \r\n-the ones he repeats and keeps on his computer- are not from Inparques, but from \r\nLen\u00edn Cardozo\u2026<\/p>\n\n\r\n\n But \r\nLenin Cardozo is not there. He left the country. Now he lives with his wife in \r\nCanada and ceased to be the \"sole environment authority\". Since March 2015, he \r\nhas been the Environment Secretary of Zulia state with a leave on health \r\ngrounds.<\/p>\n\n\r\n\n The \r\nenvironmental biologist and professor of the Faculty of Sciences of Universidad \r\ndel Zulia, Miguel Pietrangeli, believes that the public official must give the \r\nexplanation and that is why he gives the clue to solve this crossword puzzle: \r\n\"But talk to Gustavo Carrasquel (the president of the Azul Ambientalista ONG), \r\nhe is his brother \". Although with different surnames, the Frito Lay scandal \r\nseems to have come from the same family.<\/p>\n\n\n Edicso \r\nassures that in the Sierra they use taro to make porridge. They also fry it, \r\ncook it and bake it. It is a source rich in proteins according to the National \r\nInstitute of Nutrition, which qualifies it as important after the first six \r\nmonths of a baby's life. It is also included in the menu of shelters dependent \r\non the Ministry of Women and the School Feeding Program of the Ministry of \r\nEducation.<\/p>\n\n\n Based \r\non the 2014 Annual Report of the Ministry of Agriculture and Land, last year\u2019s \r\ntaro production was 94,904 tons, while in 2013, it was 84,081 tons. Edicso takes \r\nabout 40 tons of that total in his truck. He left on Saturday night from La \r\nVilla el Rosario in Zulia state without the distribution roadmap granted by the \r\nNational Institute of Integral Agricultural Health of Venezuela. Hence, his \r\ntaros could be confiscated at any time.<\/p>\n\n\r\n\n One \r\nout of the 400 hectares (988 acres) that affect the rest of Sierra de Perij\u00e1 was \r\nnecessary to fill that truck. According to his calculations, 10,000 plants are \r\nplanted out in one hectare (1.47 acres), which produced 70 tons taro. The \r\nenvironmentalists have grounds to complain.<\/p>\n\n\r\n\n Many \r\nof these sacks are sold in the wholesale market of Barquisimeto (Mercabar), Lara \r\nstate, in western Venezuela. There, Edicso unloads the product in the stall of \r\nMacario Rea\u00f1e, who has been buying and selling vegetables for over nine \r\nyears.<\/p>\n\n\r\n\n Rea\u00f1e \r\naffirms that his customers are small greengrocers who buy some sacks. I wish, he \r\nsays, that Frito Lay approaches me to buy everything at once to make a profit \r\nsoon and buy a new truck the next day. But it's not like that. \"They also sell \r\nin Trujillo and Maracay. They might buy there, I do not know,\" he says. \"The \r\ntruth is that Frito Lay does not come here.\"<\/p>\n\n\n Len\u00edn \r\nCardozo Parra, the Secretary of Environment, Land and Territorial Planning of \r\nZulia state, has a long history as an environmental defender in the region. In \r\nthe early 80\u2019s, he founded the Azul ambientalista group, which is a reference in \r\nthe region today. Graduated from Universidad del Zulia, he was Secretary of \r\nPublic Works, Infrastructure and Environment during the two administrations of \r\nFrancisco Arias C\u00e1rdenas. He was also president of the Engineers\u2019 Association of \r\nZulia state, and in the last three years, he has been promoting a regional \r\ngovernment based on ecotourism.<\/p>\n\n\r\n\n Thus, \r\nhe created some tourist routes in the west of the country. Several routes \r\ninclude a visit to a newly discovered cave a few kilometers from Sierra de \r\nPerij\u00e1. But he has his detractors. For example, Lusbi Portillo -of the NGO Homo \r\nEt Natura, who has not stopped accusing him for having double standards, as he \r\npays for pages in color in local newspapers criticizing the cultivation of taro \r\nin the foothills of Sierra de Perij\u00e1, while ignoring the exploitation of coal in \r\nother areas of northern Zulia state.<\/p>\n\n\r\n\n After \r\na few weeks, Cardozo answered -from Canada- the calls asking for an answer to \r\nthis report. He said that he remains at the helm of the Secretariat of \r\nEnvironment of Zulia and that the assistant secretary, Normando Gonz\u00e1lez, now \r\nhas his functions but does not hold his position.<\/p>\n\n\r\n\n He \r\nreiterated that Frito Lay is the company that encourages deforestation in the \r\narea and added that the product of discord no longer ends in Valencia, in the \r\nsnacks factory of the multinational Frito Lay due to a resolution he asked to be \r\nissued before the Ministry of the Environment, implemented in the military \r\ncheckpoints arranged on the road between Zulia and Carabobo \r\nstates.<\/p>\n\n\n\t\t\t\t![\"\"](\"https:\/\/armando.info\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/12\/03102015-2.jpg\")
<\/p>\n\n\nCritics<\/h2>\n\n\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/armando.info\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/12\/03102015-3.jpg\")
The Accused<\/h2>\n\n\n