Here you have a map showing population distribution in Colombia and part of Venezuela. The middle of Venezuela is mostly Llanos - huge grasslands -. The South is mostly jungle. Colombia's East is mostly Llanos as Venezuela plus jungle and the South is mostly jungle.
As you can see, Venezuela's population is very unevenly distributed. This simple map does not show the whole picture. Many of the very highly populated areas are valleys in the middle of mountains.
I think it would be silly to set up new cities in the countryside or expect people already living in the urban centres to turn into farmers. Conditions in the Venezuelan grasslands are not the same as in Virginia or California. Another development approach is needed.
A couple of things I think we can do:
1) start moving some headquarters of scientific/financial institutions to secondary cities like Calabozo or El Tigre: Right now Venezuela is way more centralized than France, Britain, the US, theNetherlands or any other developed nation and more than many other major Latin American countries. Every single national institute that is not a university is in placed in Caracas or just next to it. This needs to change once this regime is gone
2) guarantee that rural schools have excellent teachers and libraries: Venezuela's public schools are a complete mess, but rural schools are much less underdeveloped than those in major cities.
3) start solving the problem of land ownership by creating an absolutely transparent site where people -everybody- must firstly report what land they own: Based on that and following some parametres (from bigger extensions to smaller ones, for instance), start to solve ownership of land so that people can be sure of their investment. Right now land ownership is unclear for over 90% of the territory.