Rise and fall of household food security in Brazil, 2004 to 2022

Ascensão e queda da segurança alimentar domiciliar no Brasil, 2004 a 2022

Crecimiento y decrecimiento de la seguridad alimentaria de los hogares en Brasil, de 2004 a 2022

Hunger and food insecurity numbers were already increasing worldwide before the COVID-19 pandemic, but their numbers sharply increased in 2020 and continued to increase in 2021, during the pandemic. Up to 828 million people may have faced hunger worldwide in 2021 and about 2.3 billion people experienced moderate or severe food insecurity. In Latin America and the Caribbean, 13 million more people were facing hunger in 2021 than in 2019 and 63 million more were moderately or severely food insecure ¹.

Brazil was one of the pioneers in using an experienced-based measure (the Brazilian Food Insecurity Scale - EBIA) for national food insecurity monitoring. The Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics (IBGE) provides information on food insecurity since 2004 ^2,3, however, the last estimates available are from 2018. To fill the information gap on food security in Brazil during the COVID-19 pandemic, the Brazilian Research Network on Food Sovereignty and Security (Rede PENSSAN) conducted two national surveys (December 2020 and April 2022) ⁴. All surveys (2004, 2013, and 2018, by IBGE; 2020 and 2022, by Rede PENSSAN) are comparable in terms of sampling design and methodology to estimate food security and levels of food insecurity. Their findings were widely spread by national media and showed the important role of the scientific community in shedding light on social problems.

Results showed an alarming regression to levels of food insecurity worse than in 2004, erasing significant improvements made from 2004 to 2013 ⁵. The prevalence of severe food insecurity in Brazilian households increased from 9% to 15.5% in less than two years ⁴. An estimated 33.1 million Brazilians faced hunger in early 2022, 14 million more than in the end of 2020. Figure 1 shows an acceleration in the increase in severe food insecurity, which rose by 38.1% from 2013 to 2018, 55.2% from 2018 to 2020, and 72.2% from the end of 2020 to the beginning of 2022. Since 2013, severe food insecurity increased by 269% while the proportion of food secure households decreased by 46.4%.

Figure 1
Variation in the prevalence (Δ%) * of food security and severe food insecurity in Brazil from 2004 to 2022, according to the short version the Brazilian Food Insecurity Scale (EBIA) **.

Public policies directly or indirectly aimed at promoting food and nutrition security in Brazil began to be dismantled in 2016, which contributed to this regression in the fight against hunger ^{5,6,7,8,9,10,11}. Created in 2006, the Brazilian National System of Food and Nutrition Security (SISAN) has been facing large budget cuts since 2016, similarly to many programs aimed at improving food security, such as conditional cash transfer programs and support programs to strengthen the productivity of smallholder farmers. The amount that state and municipal governments receive per student for the Brazilian National School Feeding Program (PNAE) was not adjusted since February 2017, despite the rising in food prices ^12,13, compromising the quality of the meals served ¹⁴. Moreover, government support for social participation was withdrawn, even though it was a central pillar of public policy formulation in Brazil since the redemocratization in 1985. The dissolution of the Food and Nutrition Security National Council (Consea) in early 2019 is an example of this governmental abandonment to social participation, as it was the intersectoral body responsible for advising the presidency on the fight against hunger and monitoring, planning, and evaluating food security and nutrition policies ^6,15,16.

Government cash transfer programs implemented since July 2020 have been insufficient to stop the worsening of severe food insecurity in Brazil. Evidence from the 2022 Rede PENSSAN survey shows that unemployment, precarious and poorly paid jobs, income losses, and rising food prices may explain the further increase in severe food insecurity since late 2021 ⁴.

Currently, Brazil is an example of how policies based on fiscal austerity, combined with economic and political crises and governmental negligence facing the COVID-19 pandemic ¹⁷, can result in rising levels of hunger, even in countries recognized as large food exporters to the world.

Hunger and food insecurity in Brazil will reduce especially by restructuring public policies and actions aimed at reducing poverty and social inequalities. Renewed government commitment to the fight against hunger and poverty may hopefully rebuild policies and programs that proved to be successful and reimplement the Consea. Permanent structural changes are also needed, such as agrarian reform, support to smallholder farmers and traditional populations for food production and marketing, the strengthening of organic and agroecological production, the implementation of the National Policy for the Reduction of Pesticide Use, and guaranteed income and adjustments to the minimum wage above inflation. These changes also include the right to education and high quality school meals, following the guidelines of the PNAE. It is also important to ensure government monitoring of food insecurity in the population level by institutions such as IBGE, as well as funding for research on food insecurity and the evaluation of public policies aimed at eradicating hunger and promoting access to healthy food. Finally, it is urgent to promote food and nutrition security in Brazil, based on debate with various segments of society, including the scientific community.

Acknowledgments

This study was funded by the Ação da Cidadania contra a Fome, a Miséria e pela Vida, Oxfam Brazil, the Ibirapitanga Institute, the Brazilian Friedrich Ebert Foundation, and ActionAid Brazil. The funding was used for data collection. The authors also thank the Brazilian Graduate Studies Coordinating Board (CAPES) (Edital Impactos da Pandemia; n. 88887.657810/2021-00) for supporting R. Salles-Costa and V. P. Alexandre-Weiss. Thanks to Anne W. Kepple, member of the Penssan Network Monitoring WG, for critically reading the text.

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Publication Dates

• Publication in this collection
  06 Feb 2023
• Date of issue
  2023

History

• Received
  18 Oct 2022
• Reviewed
  05 Dec 2022
• Accepted
  12 Dec 2022