Oil is not what caused the food shortages, it's what allowed the government to convince everyone their policies were working during the good times, while they depleted their cash reserves to cover the massive unsustainable hole their radical social policies were burning in their pocket.

Food shortages were a result of government enacted price controls, expropriation of farmland, and centralization of financial markets. Which subsequently disrupted local food production, scared away foreign imports, and reduced access to critically needed foreign currency.

No country can produce ALL of their own food. Imports are a necessity, even for socialist countries. Artificially reducing prices, fucking over all of your domestic business talent, and severely limiting foreign currency is a (predictable) recipe for a massive food crisis.

Venezuela suffered persistent food shortages well before the oil "crisis" (as early as 2002-2003) [1] ...meanwhile every other non-socialist petrol-state has bounced back from the crisis, EXCEPT Venezuela.

When Chavez came to power he announced "capitalism was dead" to the cheers of farmers. Those farmers are now starving and flooding over the border to Colombia whose "capitalist" food markets offer both greater variety and far greater supply. The oil crisis merely exposed the complete failure of their "modern" economic system.

Yet the Venezuelan government continue to blame the west for all of their failures. And local "hoarders" and "speculators" for food shortages [2].

It's obvious that looking in the mirror and admitting personal responsibility would be political suicide for the pseudo-dictators and all of their corrupt friends.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economy_of_Venezuela

[2] https://www.economist.com/news/americas/21571445-cost-postpo...