Fair play to Hugo Chávez: he’s not the sort of man to let pesky obstacles like the laws of economics derail his vision for turning Venezuela into a socialist utopia. A couple of typically bombastic pronouncements over the weekend confirm that Hugo is happy on his chosen path and not for turning.

The government maintains strict price controls on foodstuffs such as milk and bread in an effort to ensure that poor citizens have access to daily staples, but the unintended consequence - as even a freshman economics major sitting hungover in a morning lecture daydreaming of pussy could have told you – is that, despite being one of South America’s richest nations, food shortages are now a familiar feature of everyday life, as farmers prefer to scrape a living selling their produce in neighbouring countries, where prices are higher.

Chávez’ response was a masterstroke. (All that coke must be good for the brain after all.) “If there’s a producer that refuses to sell milk to the government and sells it instead at a higher price to a private company, we will expropriate their farm,” said Mr Chávez on his Sunday television programme, Aló Presidente [“Hello, Mr President!”] as he inaugurated a state milk processing plant. “If we must bring in the army, we will do so” he added.

Nationalization of farms? Bravo, Hugo! That’ll put bread on the shelves! Indeed, for an idea so elegant in its simplicity, one wonders why no-one’s ever thought of it before. What? Oh.

(Wikipedia’s judgement on the historical record of collective farming, by the way - “forced collectivization historically has had mixed results” – is a minor masterpiece of restraint.) In fact, farm appropriations are nothing new in Venezuela; dozens were “nationalized” [read: stolen] last year on the pretext of being “large and unproductive”. One wonders how they’re doing under state control. Perhaps we shouldn't ask.

I’m being a wee bit harsh on Huggy, of course. It’s not all gibbering year-zero nonsense; he’s admitted that things will have to change if Venezuela is to move towards self-sufficiency in food. He’s raised milk prices by over a third and the government is widely expected to loosen price controls in an attempt to regain control of the situation, though of course there's little question of prices being set by the market any time soon. And there are other measures in place to ameliorate the conditions for farmers struggling to make ends meet. Banks are required to set aside a third of their loans for mortgages and small businesses, including farmers, at rates of no more than 15%. Only one small problem; inflation is running at 22.5% in Venezuela, the highest rate in South America (and those are just the official numbers). So banks are required to make a hefty loss on a third of the loans they hand out. Not surprisingly, this law is not as well-observed as it might be.

So, what’s Hugo’s solution to this? Yeah, you've seen it coming, haven't you? "The law must be applied,'' Chávez said during a televised meeting with farmers. "Any bank that doesn't comply with these lending requirements should be seized."

¡Hasta la victoria siempre!