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Lula set out for Teresina, in Piauí, to inaugurate the Brazil Without Hunger program. Moreover, the federal administration aims to coordinate a range of initiatives and programs with the goal of removing Brazil from the Hunger Map, reducing poverty rates, and ensuring adequate food and nutrition for all citizens.
On March 31, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva posted on the social network X, formerly known as Twitter, reaffirming his commitment to the fight against hunger. According to Lula, his main mission in life is to ensure that all workers enjoy three decent meals a day and can provide adequate nutrition for their children. In addition, he emphasized that efforts in this area are ongoing.
The Brazil Without Hunger project, approved by the Interministerial Chamber for Food and Nutritional Security (Caisan), engages 24 ministries and encompasses a set of 80 government strategies and policies to achieve approximately 100 proposed objectives.
Valéria Burity, extraordinary secretary for the Fight Against Hunger at the Ministry of Development and Social Assistance, Family and Fight Against Hunger, outlined that the plan rests on three fundamental pillars:
- The first focuses on measures to ensure access to income and citizenship, encompassing social protection policies;
- The second addresses the production and consumption of healthy and appropriate food;
- Third, the government seeks the participation of the Executive, Legislative and Judiciary branches, as well as society as a whole, in the fight against hunger throughout the country.
Alarming food insecurity situation in Brazil
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Although Brazil left the United Nations (UN) Hunger Map in 2014, due to food and nutrition security strategies implemented in the previous decade, the country reappeared on the map in the following years, particularly during the covid-19 crisis.
The global study “The State of Food Security and Nutrition in the World,” published by five specialized UN agencies, indicates that 9.9% of Brazilians experienced severe food insecurity between 2020 and 2022.
Additionally, 32.8% of the population, representing 70.3 million Brazilians, fall under the classifications of severe or moderate food insecurity. These statistics reveal a deterioration in food security in Brazil. Previous data, from 2014 to 2016, indicated a rate of 18.3%.
Food monitoring and provision
In urban areas, the largest share of hungry individuals is concentrated, with 27 million of the 33 million people experiencing severe food insecurity residing in metropolitan areas, according to the II National Survey on Food Insecurity in the Context of the Covid-19 Pandemic in Brazil, conducted by the Brazilian Research Network on Food Sovereignty and Security (Rede Penssan) in 2022.
Those most affected include households headed by Black women, people without stable housing, traditional communities and groups, informal workers, among others.
In response, the Brazil Without Hunger plan proposes consolidating the food and nutrition security, social assistance, and health systems. One innovation is the Food Acquisition Program, which will distribute products to community kitchens, civil initiatives created to combat hunger during the pandemic.
The project also anticipates rebuilding government stocks to regulate the supply and prices of food.
Current actions and future horizons
Among the measures already in operation are the per capita adjustment of the National School Feeding Program (Pnae), the renewed Bolsa Família, the increase in the minimum wage, the reactivation of the Food Acquisition Program (PAA), and the Family Farming Harvest Plan.
The Brazil Without Hunger project also provides for agreements with states, organizations, and priority municipalities to promote caravans of the initiative in regions with a high number of people experiencing severe food insecurity.
To implement this proposal, it will be essential to compile statistical data that will be periodically included in the National Household Sample Survey of the Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics (IBGE).
This information will enable more accurate monitoring of food security in Brazil and encourage the creation of effective public policies.
Furthermore, the inauguration of the Brazil Without Hunger Program in Teresina by Lula underscores the urgent need to address hunger and food insecurity in the country. The project, which involves multiple ministries and proposes actions based on three essential pillars, aims to remove Brazil from the Hunger Map, reduce indigence, and ensure food and nutritional security for all citizens.
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The worrying scenario of food insecurity in Brazil, intensified by the COVID-19 crisis, requires robust interventions to ensure that all citizens have access to adequate and nutritious food. The integration of food security, social assistance, and health systems, together with measures such as the Food Acquisition Program and the recovery of government stocks, represents crucial progress along this path.
Ongoing actions, such as the adjustment of Pnae, the new Bolsa Família, and the Harvest Plan for Family Farming, demonstrate the government's determination to eradicate hunger and promote food security throughout the country.
With constant monitoring of food safety and the promotion of program caravans in critical areas, the aim is for Brazil to overcome this adversity and ensure that all citizens enjoy respectable, high-quality food.
