How did Brazil get to the current famine scenario?

It is a global problem, exacerbated by the socio-economic impacts of the Covid-19 pandemic: hunger has increased worldwide. But in Brazil, figures and experts point out, the situation is particularly serious, with the increase in poverty and the decrease in food on the plate being a phenomenon that began well before the current health crisis.

The National Survey on Food Insecurity in the Context of the Covid-19 Pandemic in Brazil, developed by the Brazilian Research Network on Food and Nutrition Sovereignty and Security (Rede Penssan), released in 2021, indicated that 55.2% of Brazilian households were experiencing a food insecurity scenario — an increase of 54% compared to 2018, when this percentage was 36.7%.

In other words: 116.8 million Brazilians do not have full and permanent access to food.

The idea of ​​food security was coined shortly after World War I. Currently, it is classified as mild food insecurity when there is unavailability of some basic food; moderate when little availability or variety affects the individual from a nutritional point of view; and severe when it is not possible to eat any meals for a day or more.

According to the Penssan survey, 9% of the Brazilian population —19.1 million inhabitants— experience this more serious situation.

Pandemic worsened the scenario

For economist Renato Maluf, a professor at the Federal Rural University of Rio de Janeiro and coordinator of the Penssan Network, “the covid-19 pandemic worsened this situation, but it is not its primary cause”.

He points out as the beginning of this moment of return to hunger and food insecurity the economic crisis that began seven years ago and the political crisis with the impeachment process of the Dilma Rousseff government. “Their [desses dois episódios] compromised access to food due to growing unemployment, precarious work, low pay, withdrawal of social rights and the progressive dismantling of public policies”, he lists.

A Penssan survey based on data from the Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics (IBGE) corroborates this situation. In 2013, 77.1% of Brazilian households were in a situation of food security — a record in the historical series. In 2018, the percentage had already dropped to 63.3%—a decline to a level similar to that of 2004. And the curve continues downward.

Nutritionist Sandra Chaves, a professor at the Federal University of Bahia and deputy coordinator of Penssan, says that “the pandemic revealed the hunger that was already present for significant portions of the Brazilian population”.

She analyzes that the phenomenon was caused by “a set of actions that announced a worsening in the living conditions of Brazilians”. “Labor reform, worsening employability, reducing social rights linked to work, generating unemployment and precarious work with reduced income; paralysis of social policies relevant to the country”, quotes the professor.

Economist Marcelo Neri, director of the FGV Social Center for Social Policies, agrees that “income-based extreme poverty has increased every year [mais recentes]” and says that ” this was due to the great Brazilian recession, increase in income inequality from work and downsizing of social programs, such as Bolsa Familia”. “The pandemic is a stage in this process”, he comments.

Data from FGV Social show that in 2019 11% of Brazilians lived in poverty — that is, with just over R$260 per month. This figure considers a minimum wage divided by 4.6 people—the average size of poor Brazilian families.

In August 2020, the so-called “peak of emergency aid” due to the pandemic, this extreme poverty had dropped to 4.8% of the population. More recent data, from November 2021, indicate an increase to levels above the pre-pandemic: 13% of Brazilians are in this situation of misery.

Problem worse than in the rest of the world

According to the United Nations (UN), severe food insecurity reached dangerously high levels after the Covid-19 pandemic. Data from the World Food Program released in November show that 45 million people are going hungry in 43 countries around the world – in 2019, there were 27 million.

The UN calls on governments and civil societies to come together to mitigate this scenario, insisting on an age-old goal of eradicating hunger from the planet by 2030.

For economist Neri, it is clear that the increase in hunger in Brazil occurs at more intense levels than in other countries. He points out that, according to a survey carried out by FGV Social based on data from the Gallup World Poll, if 17% of Brazilians declared they had no money to buy food in 2014, when Brazil left the so-called UN Hunger Map, the current number is 28%. The country’s return to the UN’s food insecurity list took place in 2018.

According to a survey by FGV Social, in 2014, Brazil occupied the 36th position in a ranking of food insecurity with 145 countries, and is now in the 80th. For Neri, the country’s drop in the ranking is “unacceptable in the so-called ‘world farm'”.

The fact that Brazilian food production increases at the same time that food is lacking on the plate is a contradiction that cannot escape the analysis of sociologist Rogério Baptistini Mendes, a professor at Mackenzie Presbyterian University.

“The hunger that has once again made Brazilians unhappy, to the point of becoming a public health problem, is not the result of the pandemic, but of deliberate policies that make family farming unfeasible and subordinate rural production to the interests of agribusiness”, he explains. .

“While unemployment exploded and hunger hit just over 19 million people, [segundo a rede Penssa]agribusiness GDP experienced a record expansion of 24.31% in 2020 [conforme dados da Confederação da Agricultura e Pecuária do Brasil e do Centro de Estudos Avançados em Economia Aplicada]”, compares the sociologist.

According to Mendes, “we don’t suffer from a lack of production, but from the abandonment of Brazilians”. “There was no interest on the part of the government to protect the vulnerable and fight hunger,” he says.

He points out that what happened was a series of losses of “protections for workers and the humble”. “Deregulations, lack of policies and planning, lag in the coverage of Bolsa Família. This, added to the growing unemployment and the decrease in income, brought the current scenario”, he lists.

Criticism of Aid Brazil

For specialists, the solution to this problem involves a set of measures —”public policies that imply work-income-food production-access to food”, defines nutritionist Chaves.

Auxílio Brasil, a program recently created by the federal government, in this sense helps as an emergency. “Any emergency cash transfer program can be an emergency palliative in times of crisis like the one we live in”, highlights Chaves. “Families need to have some security that they will be able to feed their children at this difficult time.”

Neri defines the program as “simplistic” because “it complicates the conditionalities of Bolsa Família”, “it goes backwards in focus and stability” and “stumbles on the long-term effects”.

“It tries to be a new emergency aid and at the same time change the benefit structure. It generates a lot of confusion”, he argues. “It may work electorally, but it does not take into account the size or degree of poverty of the family. Social policy loses focus and durability and ‘gains’ electoral opportunism.”

Maluf compares the aid created during the pandemic. “Both emergency aid and Auxílio Brasil were important for the transfer of income, which alleviated the serious situation of millions of families, but they were poorly designed and did not have the necessary amplitude”, he contextualizes.

“Emergency aid had its value increased by Congress, against the government’s unwillingness, it had a short duration and was interrupted for not having enough budget forecast”, he continues.

“Auxílio Brasil intends to be a program without the improvisation of the previous one, but it is equally poorly designed, cannot properly be considered a social policy and cannot disguise the electoral purpose by replacing the successful program, Bolsa Família, with its own brand. “