Hunger and extreme poverty: the challenges for Brazil

Ívina Garcia – From Cenarium Magazine

MANAUS – Poverty may be directly related to money, but beyond that, it prevents part of the population from having access to basic goods such as food, work, education and leisure, essential for a good quality of life.

Among the challenges, hunger is the most urgent and highlighted. In 2014, the country had left the United Nations (UN) Map of Hunger, due to economic and social strategies since the governments of Presidents Itamar Franco and Fernando Collor.

Marked by the National Day for Combating Poverty, on 14 December, Brazil again faced the problem of hunger in 2015, having a worsening in 2020, throughout the Covid-19 pandemic, despite the emergency aid of R$ 600 for more vulnerable families, sanctioned by President Jair Bolsonaro (PL), defeated at the polls by President-elect Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva.

The president-elect, in his first speech to the nation on October 30 after the polls were counted, reaffirmed his pact to reduce poverty and end hunger. “Our most urgent commitment is to end hunger again. We cannot accept that millions of people in this country do not have what to eat. This will again be the number one commitment of my government”, said Lula.

As the sociologist and professor at the Federal University of Amazonas (Ufam), Luiz Antonio Nascimento, facing poverty is not only about money. “It materialises most forcefully by hunger, hence the need to combat poverty starting by the most urgent door which is hunger”, says.

Data from the Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics from 2020 show that the country had 13.5 million people in extreme poverty, adding to those on the poverty line, the number represents 25% of the Brazilian population.

Furthermore, according to the 2nd National Survey on Food Insecurity in the Context of the Covid-19 Pandemic in Brazil (II Vigisan), of June 2022, it shows that there are 14 million new Brazilians in a situation of hunger since the conclusion of the previous study, in 2021.

Part of Brazil’s return to the Hunger Map is due to low investment in social programmes. The Bolsonaro Government practically zeroed investments in Alimenta Brasil, R$ 89 million were invested until May 2022 and R$ 58.9 million in the whole year 2021. To get an idea, the amount is ten times less than the R$ 586 million invested in 2012 to fight hunger.

The survey also shows that more than half (58.7%) of the Brazilian population lives with food insecurity, that is, when there is lack of regular and permanent access to food in sufficient quantity and quality for survival, to some degree: mild, moderate or severe.

Sociologist Luiz Antônio recalls that between 2015 and 2016, the country had 1 million tons of rice stored in the federal government’s stockpile. “From then to now those numbers have fallen to the point where you get to 2023 and you don’t have a single kilo of rice stockpiled”, he says.

These foods were part of the Alimenta Brasil programme, which are now in the power of private companies. “The Bolsonaro government did not stimulate the stock and dismantled the structure of storage silos, today who holds the stocks are private enterprise, which is selling to foreign countries, and the most bizarre and hilarious thing about this is that they are selling to Cuba, Venezuela and China [countries criticised by the current government]”, he points out.

Human development

The Human Development Index (HDI), which measures the quality of life of people around the world, fell globally between the years 2020 and 2021 due to the impacts caused by the pandemic and socioeconomic changes around the planet, according to the Human Development 2021/2022 report.

Losing one position in the ranking of 191 countries, Brazil closed 2021 with the HDI of 0.754 occupying the 87th position in the ranking. In 2020, the country was in 86th, with an index of 0.758. In first place is Switzerland, with an HDI of 0.962, in 2021.

In addition to hunger, the index scores access to basic goods, according to the sociologist, poverty materialises more forcefully in hunger, but this is not the only problem. “It is also important to generate quality employment with a valued minimum wage. When a person enters the labour market with this guarantee, people start to generate economy, either by building something or opening a small market and investing in the family, generating economy and development”, he points out.

For him, economic policies of income distribution are the foundation for poverty to decrease again. “There is research from various universities in the country proving the importance of economic compensation policies. In these researches it has already been proven that for every R$ 1 that the government destines for families, the economy generates up to R$ 1.38”, concludes the sociologist, pointing out a way out for Brazil to leave the Map of Hunger.

“These actions are mitigating, because the dynamics of current capitalism is one of spectacular concentration of wealth in the hand of a few and there is no doubt that Karl Marx’s Theory of Value showed this back there”, recalls the sociologist. “When you have accumulation of wealth on one side, on the other side there is accumulation of poverty”, Luiz Antônio concludes.