Above photo: Brazil de Fato.
‘Brazil Without Hunger’.
On Thursday Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva presented an ambitious plan to take the South American country off of the world hunger map. “The problem is not a lack of food, it is not a lack of crops, the problem is that the people do not have enough to buy food,” Lula said in a public event in the city of Teresina.
In his speech he reminded that his program to fight poverty has as a connecting axis to address the structural causes of hunger that it is not limited to just economic aid but also must have an articulated policy.
For this reason, he stressed that the Bolsa Familia program is not enough and does not represent a definitive solution, but a necessary step to ensure that the wealth produced in the country is distributed more equitably and that salaries guarantee the material conditions of all Brazilians and even allow them to cover expenses, such as the acquisition of electronic devices or the purchase of a vehicle.
“What I want is a country in which every family, no matter how poor, has enough to eat (…), I want the people be able to buy food, I want the people to buy books, I want the people to be educated”, he said.
Promise fulfilled
After defeating Jair Bolsonaro in the 2022 elections, Lula affirmed that his third term in office would have as a cornerstone “to end hunger again”. One day shy of eight months in the presidency, the patriarch of the Workers’ Party (PT) presented the new plan to combat food insecurity, hoping to replicate the success of his previous ‘Zero Hunger’ program.
From Teresina, capital of the state of Piauí (Northeast region), Lula’s government announced the Brazil Without Hunger plan, this new set of policies that seeks to help 33 million people who are in a situation of severe food insecurity in the country.
Lula went on to explain that the goal is “So that the worker can once again have his three meals in a dignified way and provide quality food for his children”, in a message published on the social network X.
What is included in Brazil Without Hunger?
The program integrates 80 social policies and actions articulated at the municipal, state and federal levels. With Brazil Without Hunger, Lula’s government will seek to increase income for the purchase of food, expand social protection policies, as well as production and access to healthy and sustainable food.
Among the new components of the plan is the integration of “food security, assistance and health systems,” explained Valéria Burity, extraordinary secretary for the Fight against Hunger of the Ministry of Development and Social Assistance, Family and Fight against Hunger.
The program has a hundred goals, although there is one main indicator that has been set: to reduce, year after year, the total poverty indexes, reducing by five points the percentage of households in severe food insecurity.
As part of the initiatives being deployed to implement the plan, the Government announced that the VI National Conference on Food Security will be held in Brasilia on December 11.