In his inauguration speech at the National Congress, the President of the Republic, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, highlighted that the fight against hunger would be one of the priorities of his government. According to the president, the first actions of his government would aim, among other objectives, to rescue 33 million Brazilians from hunger. And in these few more than three months of management, the federal government announced several measures whose focus is to attack the food insecurity of the Brazilian population. One of the first actions in this regard was the recreation, on February 28, of the National Food Security Council (Consea), extinct in 2019. Researcher at the Federal Rural University of Rio de Janeiro (UFRRJ), Renato Maluf approves Lula’s first measures and your team. “The beginning of the government I evaluate as very positive, with several initiatives. Perhaps the most representative is the recreation of Consea. The Council is now fully operational. Yesterday and today [dias 5 e 6 de abril], has already held its second plenary session. And already in line with establishing priority axes and starting to design the 6th National Conference which, in principle, is called for the first week of December”. Consea has the task of advising the Presidency of the Republic on matters related to food insecurity. Researcher Juliana Lignani, from the Institute of Nutrition at the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro (UFRJ), is another to approve the return of the council. “The resumption of Consea is a very important act because it is an arena for debate, it is where civil society can propose various actions and where we have direct advice from the Presidency of the Republic, so that we can effectively develop the security policy food and nutrition. Having this space for dialogue and debate is essential for the fight against hunger to happen”. Bolsa Família Two days later, the government issued Provisional Measure 1,164, which reformulates the Bolsa Família program, which transfers income to poorer families. In the new version of the program, in addition to the BRL 600 per family with monthly per capita income of up to BRL 218, an additional BRL 150 will be guaranteed for each child up to six years old and an additional BRL 50 for dependents aged between seven and 17 years. and for pregnant women. “The reconfiguration of Bolsa Família and its implementation was quite quick, which is excellent news, since this has an immediate impact on the huge contingent of people who live with hunger in Brazil”, says Maluf, who is also a former coordinator of the Brazilian Research Network on Sovereignty and Food and Nutritional Security (Penssan). President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva launches the new Bolsa Família program. President embraces Isamara Mendes da Silva who benefited from the program Photo: Lula Marques/Agência Brasil On March 10, it was the turn to announce the readjustment passed on to states and municipalities for the purchase of school lunches. On average, the values of the National School Feeding Program (PNAE) were increased by 39%, after six years without readjustments. “The readjustment of the PNAE makes it possible for children, adolescents and adults who are attending school to have at least two or three meals a day”, explains Juliana. According to Maluf, the readjustment of values corrected the large gap caused by food inflation. “With values frozen and food prices rising, managers’ reaction was obviously to buy what they could,” she said. Another policy in the field of food security is the Food Acquisition Program (PAA), relaunched on March 22. It had originally been created in 2003 and replaced, in 2021, by the Alimenta Brasil program. The PAA consists of government purchases of food from family farmers and small producers for their food projects. “With the resumption of the PAA, we are able to both reduce hunger for both those who will receive this food and improve the condition of the food producer himself, who knows that he will have a final destination for his crop”, explains Juliana. According to the chairman of the Board of the non-governmental organization Ação da Cidadania, Daniel Souza, for the first time since 2017, a political will to fight hunger is perceived. “We have experienced a dismantling of public policies since 2017, which got worse in the last government and got worse with the pandemic. Now we understand that the fight against hunger is a priority for the Lula government. We understand that there is still a lot to be done, but that we are on the right path”, said Souza. Quality of Food Juliana Lignani considers that the first 100 days were “many achievements”, but says that it is also necessary to be concerned with the quality of food production that is offered to Brazilians. “What we still need to see, and I don’t know if this would be possible in such a short time, are the issues of food production itself, that is, the use of pesticides, the release of transgenics, the role of the industry within the actions . These are things that we still need to see how it will look from now on”. The Ministry of Agrarian Development has already announced that it should launch a program in May to stimulate the production of healthy foods in the country. For Renato Maluf, it is necessary to strengthen family-based and agroecological agriculture to guarantee the supply of these healthy foods. But, in addition to that, he considers it important to plan a national supply policy, so that these products also reach residents of more peripheral areas. “It is not the conventional vision of supply that defends agribusiness, of millions of tons. It is a vision of supply that mediates between the production of healthy foods and access to these foods, in particular by lower-income populations or those who live in peripheries that are poorly served by equipment that sells real food. These fairs that we have around the country of family, agroecological and organic agriculture are mostly attended by a population with better income”.
Agência Brasil
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