Mr Chavez's supporters are keen for him to push ahead with reforms

The government plans to enforce a 2001 land law that allows it to either tax or seize unused land, Mr Chavez said during his weekly television address.

"We are going after the idle land and will put it to work," he said.

The issue has provoked strong emotions in a country where a minority own the majority of agricultural land.

Both sides

Critics claim that Mr Chavez is trying to enforce a communist-style economic programme that ignores property rights and will damage the country.

To his supporters, however, Mr Chavez is a champion of the poor who is taking steps to right many decades of neglect.

Mr Chavez tried to play down the threat he poses to the landed classes.

"We are not the enemy of the rural estates, we are not going to burn them, we are not going to invade land," he explained.

But, "in this stage of the revolution, I demand strict application of the constitution and the land law." However, some workers, impatient for the government to intervene, have already seized land.

Productivity check

The government will assess large estates and look at how best to utilise unused land.

The redistribution programme allows for some of it to be given over to peasant cooperatives, which will get state aid to farm the land.

The Venezuelan opposition accuses Mr Chavez of destroying the country

The government last year said that it planned to hand out as much as 3.7 million acres (1.5 million hectares) to rural workers in the early stages of its programme, the Reuters news agency reported.

Mr Chavez is not afraid to ruffle feathers and has clashed with the US in the past.

Earlier this month, he won a referendum on his rule that had threatened to bring the country, and its key oil output, to a halt.

In 2002, he survived a coup attempt as well as months of strikes and mass opposition rallies.