Caracas Daily Journal (Jeremy Morgan): The Venezuelan government is evidently trying to head off yet another emerging food shortage at the pass by protecting the supply chain for corn.

Food Minister Rafael Oropoza has imposed a ban on exporting corn of any sort until the end of the year ... the ban applies to corn that was imported into the country in the first place.

• This practice of re-exporting product amounts to a form of recycling that has nothing to do with the environment.  Some people blame it on the low level of official prices in the domestic market.

Skeptics point out that short-term measures “can have a tendency to acquire long lives,” as one economist in the state sector privately put it. “Don’t forget the foreign exchange controls ... they were put into force as an emergency measure to prevent capital flight as the national strike came to an end in February 2003. The restrictions might have been relaxed, but they’re still very much there and are likely to be around for a long time.”

From Finance Minister Rodrigo Cabezas downwards, officials insist that the system of currency controls ... which the business community would dearly like to go ... is here to stay.  Further easing of the rules to enable companies to import machinery and other needs to boost capacity or modernize plant in response to the expanding economy isn’t ruled out, however.

As to the case of corn, it’s open to question as to whether the export ban is actually necessary or whether it even addresses the root of the problem. For a start, not everybody’s convinced that there’s actually a shortage of corn ... although it’s quite plainly evident that other food staples are already scarce.

Among these are powdered milk (as has by now become all but customary in a country full of babies), sugar, coffee, chicken, rice and black beans, and producers have warned that the latest candidate to join the list is pasta because of shortfalls in wheat supply. But the price of peppers suddenly started to go up by leaps and bounds this week. Peppers evidently decided to give pasta a run for the consumers’ money. Both items can still be found at stalls and shops, but the same question hovers over both of them: for how much longer?

The official “resolution” signed by Oropeza orders that corn should be “declassified with priority to satisfy internal consumption."

Exports would only be considered in cases where supply exceeded domestic demand ... a condition that will likely prove difficult to prove if and when it comes to convincing officials to unbend on the ban.

Corn is a key ingredient in the making of arepas ... the traditional snack in Venezuela that remains highly popular among the poorer parts of the population that can’t meet the bill at fashionable (and hence, relatively pricey) up-market hamburger joints.