With the news that the last open border to Bolivia will soon be closed, Bolivia has announced the introduction of rationing as a temporary measure. Rationing will primarily be implemented in urban areas, and conducted on a local level through the autodefensas.

Rations will focus on simple allocations of potatoes, sweet potatoes, flour, various fats, and sugar, with occasional meat, along with fresh produce. All urban residents of Bolivia will be issued ration-ticket books that will give them the right to purchase certain quantities of these goods at controlled prices, although they may not always be available. The goal will be for rations to consist of a nutritious, if bland, 3,000 calories a day. Tobacco and alcohol will be rationed, but cocaine and coca products will not be.

In addition to official rations, some food will be diverted to be distributed directly through PRBI channels--mainly meat and vegetables. While not an official government policy, anyone looking for roast (guinea) pig will find their best luck if they're a PRBI member or attend one of the PRBI communal kitchens.

Officially, rationing is a temporary measure until Bolivia is self-sufficient in food production, whether this actually is the case... well, I think any observer would find the answer to that question obvious, though whether the Bolivians will believe it is another story.

Rationing also will not be implemented in rural areas, creating an incentive to move out of the cities and take up farming; similarly, food collected from private gardens will not be rationed, or privately hunted or gathered.

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On top of introducing rationing, with the export flow of minerals to crawl to a halt, Bolivia has announced a general furlough of miners. Miners in most mines have been either laid off or reduced to 1 day a week of operation, while miners in the silver mines [which largely produce silver-lead and silver-zinc] have been maintained at normal levels, due to silver's relative ease of smuggling. These laid-off miners are presently being maintained on partial pay, provided they operate in some other "useful activity", generally either gold prospecting and extraction, or farming. These miners have been promised that they will soon be able to return to the mines once normal lines of communication with the outside world are restored, something that they're accepting for the moment, but whether this can remain the case for long is uncertain--and President Juan Lechin has been raising worrying noises, much to the alarm of the Director of Statistics and the PRBI leadership.