Brazil’s return to the Hunger Map is an unprecedented setback in the world, says economist

One of the creators of Fome Zero and one of the main researchers in food security in Brazil, Walter Belik, a retired professor at Unicamp’s Institute of Economics, argues that the Bolsonaro government is carrying out a deliberate policy of dismantling initiatives against hunger in the country.

Belik recalls the creation of Fome Zero as a multi-party project. Originally designed as a program to distribute coupons in exchange for food, it was replaced by Bolsa Família, the flagship of Lula’s social policy, and the name came to designate a food security strategy. The initiatives paved the way for Brazil to leave the FAO (United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization) Hunger Map in 2014.

The scenario changed from 2015, says Belik, with rising inflation, the absence of recomposition of the value of social benefits and a dismantling of food security policies, especially under the Bolsonaro government.​

The country returned to the Hunger Map in 2018 and, in 2020, recorded 55.2% of the population living with food insecurity, according to a survey by the Penssan Network. Scenes observed in 2021, such as people looking for bones and carcasses to feed and the various protests against hunger, cannot be credited only to the crisis caused by the pandemic, he says.

to which mr. do you attribute the advance of hunger in recent years? The increase was predictable. We had a reduction until 2014 and the rise starts to appear in 2017. The year 2018 already configures a return of Brazil to the Hunger Map. This data is confirmed and worsened in the following years, according to data from Reden Penssan and the UN. In 2022, the trend is for this increase to continue.

The UN associates severe and moderate food insufficiency with hunger. Taking the two percentages, we arrive at a picture of approximately 25% of the population in a vulnerable situation. It’s pretty critical. It is a very complicated picture, a quarter of the population is going hungry in Brazil.

The impacts to the economy are huge, because there is a social cost of hunger. This cost must be managed by public policies. It impacts the social security system, the Budget, health, education —with children’s learning delay—, and on the labor market, with a reduction in labor and productivity.

Putting it on the balance, prevention would be cheaper. Hunger is expensive.

How much has the pandemic affected hunger? It is not possible to attribute hunger only to Covid, because if we had a social protection network in place, we would not have a situation as complicated as the one we are experiencing.

Conab’s regulatory stock program, for example, based mainly on purchases from family farms, is over. A good part of the shortages crisis and high prices in 2020 has to do with the idea that Brazil does not need regulatory stocks of food, which is absurd not only from the point of view of food security, but nationally.

The country’s dependence on imports and the variation of international prices is absurd, given the scenario of abundance that we have in Brazil.

Mr. talks about dismantling the food safety net in the Bolsonaro government. Which policies were affected? The list is extensive. The Bolsa Família, dehydrated, changed from a conditional cash transfer program to a donation program. With Auxílio Brasil, the idea of ​​protection and social assistance for these families was sidelined.

The Pronaf [Programa de Fortalecimento da Agricultura Familiar] was dehydrated and the values ​​cut by 35%. The agrarian reform program, the Secretariat of Family Agriculture, the Conab regulatory stocks program and the cisterns program have all been discontinued.

O PAA [Programa de Aquisição de Alimentos], which prioritized the purchase of food from family farming for donations or school meals and came to buy almost R$ 1 billion, guaranteeing income for small producers, ended.

The food bank program became “Food on the Plate”, an assistance program created by the government to cash in on the work done two decades ago by food banks in Brazil, basically organized by civil society. The popular restaurant program was discontinued, and today we are experiencing congestion in the R$1 popular restaurants, thanks to the population’s loss of income. The community kitchens program is over.

Now, the government wants to change the PAT [Programa de Alimentação do Trabalhador] and reduce the tax exemption of companies that promote food stamps or have a restaurant in the company. All supply programs, such as modernization or even privatization of Ceasas, also ended. They have become obsolete, but they play a very important role in urban supply.

It’s one thing to fix a program, another to kill it. It has a huge list of programs completed in the name of solving fiscal problems and respecting the spending ceiling, which was then breached.

why mr. criticize the program Comida no Prato? This case is scandalous. In 2017, the Brazilian Food Bank Network was created, an idea from a long time ago that aimed to improve communication between the more than 200 banks across the country and reduce costs. They are mostly NGOs and civil entities.

The Bolsonaro government centralized the registration of donations from new donors, such as supermarkets or industries, and promises exemption from ICMS to them. Now, this tax is statewide and most of the donated food is fresh. States like São Paulo do not charge ICMS on them. It is an innocuous and populist measure.

In the case of industrialized products, where IPI is levied, there is no exemption.

The government wants to concentrate information around him and then say that it is carrying out a solidarity action, but it does nothing, it is the companies that donate and the NGOs that do it. It’s scandalous. It’s supposed to work in the political propaganda of 2022. Sad to see.

How can the issue of hunger affect the 2022 elections? If in previous campaigns the themes were corruption and public security, this year it will be health, first and foremost, and food.

We are in a situation of setback that is unique in the world. There is not a single case in the history documented by FAO of a country that left the map and came back. None. This is the size of the tragedy we are living.

The tragedy we are experiencing with famine shocks anyone who works in the area or sees the situation. It should be the number one priority at the head of any government program. Of course, coming from Bolsonaro, it’s not something serious, it’s electoral. But I would say that others have a concern about this and, in campaigns, it will be fundamental.

Mr. defend a Zero Hunger 2.0 if Lula, who leads the polls, is elected? I am not affiliated with PT. I don’t know exactly what is being discussed today, at the government program level. But I would say that anyone with common sense is going to have to tackle this problem as number one.

Perhaps it is no longer a PT flag, but a flag of civilized society as a whole. It’s a civilizing issue. More than half of the population lives in food insecurity, according to the latest data. You can’t turn your back on that.

It is not possible that any candidate, who has some sense of solidarity and a certain empathy for the Brazilian people, can live with a situation like this. It’s not possible. So it’s not just a problem for candidate Lula, but for all candidates.​

Why did Zero Hunger fail to structurally eliminate hunger? Cash transfer programs are the first step. Those who are hungry are in a hurry. You have to guarantee a basic basket, food on the table of these families.

The next step, indeed a gigantic one, is to tackle the issues of poverty in a multidimensional way. Data show that spending on transport exceeded spending on food, traditionally the largest of families. How to guarantee food if the subject is going to spend part of the income transfer to pay for transport to work? Approximately 30 million are in precarious jobs and do not have transportation vouchers. Spend to work.

Housing is another expense item that is at the same level as food expenses, around 20%.

It is not possible to have a food program without analyzing these other dimensions that make up poverty. What needs to be done? What hasn’t been done? It is to move from this phase of programs linked to food security to more general programs that can guarantee the eradication of poverty, the number one goal of the UN millennium. And eradicating poverty is not just about income, it has other related issues.

What should a program to combat hunger today do differently from what was done in Fome Zero? The number one program would now be supplying urban centers, a topic for which the program did not provide broader responses. There were punctual responses.

It has to modernize the supply and commercialization relationships, from the field to the final consumer. We are in an era of the digital economy and we must take advantage of all the elements provided by digital platforms: reduce intermediation, streamline systems, promote standardization and classification in the field and the definition of packaging to reduce waste, improve transport systems and marketing platforms, in addition to connecting distribution centers with family farming, especially the poorest producers.

It is possible to do. It is also necessary to establish more permanent relationships between the consumer and the producer, for example, through a subscription model for baskets of fresh and healthy foods.

Food quality also worsened in the pandemic, with increased consumption of ultra-processed foods. How to attack this problem? Ultra-processed ones are cheaper and easier to find.

We need to guarantee an improvement in income in the countryside and in the supply in the city. We have a wonderful network of Ceasas (Supply Centers), built in the 70’s, which is deteriorating. She can fulfill that role.

Ceagesp (Companhia de Entrepostos e Armazéns Gerais de São Paulo), for example, has had its sales volume stagnant for ten years. It is being eaten around the edges by modern wholesale, which operates via supermarkets. It is important to provide this distribution system for fairs, small businesses, direct purchases for the consumer.

It’s no use making an income transfer of R$ 600 and the person buying a very industrialized food. Some areas are true food deserts and this has worsened in the pandemic: there is no fair, no distribution, circulation of fresh food.

The idea is that you can reconnect people who receive income transfers with healthy food, ensuring income in the countryside as well.

In the short term, should something change in the scenario of hunger in Brazil? This year will still be very complicated. With Brazil’s fiscal situation, some ceilings were established. The parliamentary amendments address issues related to infrastructure. So there is no consistent program aimed at combating this problem right now, in the short term. And the pandemic, which was thought to be controlled, is experiencing a new lack of control. I don’t see much of a way to solve the problem.

Even more so because we will have a year of recession, with growth forecasts at zero, 0.29%. And with zero growth, unemployment persists and income declines.

The international picture is also relatively complicated, so we will continue with price increases. I would say 2022 will not feature any refreshments. In 2023, with whoever wins the election, other than Bolsonaro, we will have the possibility to tackle this problem head-on.

X-ray

Walter Belik, 66, holds a degree in business administration from FGV, a master’s degree from the same institution and a doctorate in economics from Unicamp. He did postdoctoral work at University College London and at the Department of Agriculture and Natural Resource Economics at the University of California, Berkeley, United States. He is retired professor of agricultural economics at Unicamp’s Institute of Economics and visiting professor at the University of Kassel, Germany. He coordinated the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) Latin America and the Caribbean Without Hunger Initiative, until 2008 and since 2013 he has been a member of the UN High-Level Panel of Experts for World Food Security. He has published more than 200 scientific articles, as well as books and texts in the field of agriculture and food.​