Brazil's Policies to Guarantee Food Rights

Abstract

In the last two decades, Brazil has worked hard to tackle deep-rooted food and nutrition insecurity through a range of social policies and programmes. Between 1990 and 2015, the percentage of the population suffering from hunger dropped from 14.8 per cent to 1.7 per cent, child malnutrition rates decreased by 73 per cent, and child deaths by 45 per cent. This radical reduction meant that in 2014 Brazil was officially removed from the annual Hunger Map produced by the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO). However, while Brazil still has some issues with food and nutritional insecurity, the rapid rise of obesity now poses an increasingly serious challenge. This policy brief provides an overview of some of the key food and nutritional policies that helped reduce hunger and malnutrition, looking at how rights-based approaches to adequate and healthy food are working in Brazil’s National Food and Nutrition Surveillance System, National Breastfeeding Policy, National School-Feeding Programme and Community Restaurants. We highlight how these policies and programmes aim to tackle food and nutrition security issues, focusing on elements that are of particular relevance to the UK. A separate policy brief describing food and nutrition governance in Brazil, and its overarching National Policy for Food and Nutritional Security, is also available online from the Institute of Development Studies and the Food Foundation. The sections below provide an overview of Brazilian policies aimed at infants, children and adults, which all contribute to enabling the realisation of the human right to food.