Venezuela is undergoing a national food crisis; to counteract this Venezuela's president is exhorting compatriots to grow fruit and vegetables on balconies, roofs, schools, barracks and even prisons across the country. His call is being met with mixed responses.
His government's "Great Agro-Venezuela Mission" is promoting city farming to offset shortages which have led to lootings and riots as the OPEC country undergoes a major economic crisis.
"We need to plant to ensure food sovereignty," President Nicolas Maduro said, recounting how he and his wife harvested pumpkins on their patio for a soup that tasted "like heaven."
In the first data on the new push, Maduro's government boasts that in the last three months, some 135,000 Venezuelans have produced 273 tonnes of vegetables, fruits and herbs in urban settings.
The production seems well short of this year's goal of 3,500 tonnes, but some participants are enthusiastic.
"If all communities began to cultivate, it would help to combat the high cost of living and food shortages," said 69-year-old Luisana Galvis, a retired administrator who helps produce 30 different types of vegetable on a state-owned plot in a west Caracas slum.
Critics, though, say the project is laughably inadequate given the scale of Venezuela's problems, and absurd in a vast and fertile nation that was once a major exporter of coffee.
"Forty thousand hectares of productive land in this country and Nicolas' solution is urban agriculture!" scoffed two-time opposition presidential candidate Henrique Capriles, who accuses the government of wrecking rural output with nationalizations.
Even some who have long grown their own food are dubious of Maduro's efforts to help solve Venezuela's unprecedented crisis by emulating their city gardens.
"It's illogical to have a grand plan for urban agriculture given how fertile the land is in Venezuela," said Omar Sharam, owner of the upmarket Casa Bistro restaurant which cultivates many of its own ingredients on a city plot.
Oil gradually took over Venezuela's economy since its discovery here a century ago and now makes up 94 percent of foreign income. That has led to the neglect of other sectors, including agriculture, and made Venezuela dependent on imports.
