MINISTRY OF SOCIAL DEVELOPMENT
AND FIGHT AGAINST HUNGER - MDS
International Right to Food Forum
Experiences on the implementation of the Right to Food – Brazil
October, 2008
Rome/Italy
ROSILENE CRISTINA ROCHA
Deputy Executive Secretary
Brazil
Area: 8.5 million Km2
(26 states, 1 Federal District and 5564 municipalities)
Population: 186.3 million people
(IBGE - 2007)
Nominal GDP: US$ 1,067,325.00 (Estimate)
R$ 2.322.818,00
(IBGE – BC/Annual Report 2006)
Gini Index: 0,562
(CPS/IBRE/FGV 2007)
Estimate of Poor Families: 11.102.764
(IPEA 2004)
Average number of people per household: 3,55 people
Urban = 3,47 people
Rural = 3,82 people
(IBGE - 2007)
ZERO HUNGER
 Multisectorial strategy from the Federal Government which is based on the
Human Right to Adequate Food:
 It integrates various programs and actions, allowing a greater synergy among the
public policies;
It creates the bases for the promotion of Food and Nutrition Security;
 It contributes to the eradication of the extreme poverty and to the citizenship
acquisition by the most vulnerable to hunger population;
 It articulates emancipation actions with measures that ensure rights, facing the false
dichotomy: structuring policies versus emergency measures;
 It promotes the civil society control and participation in the elaboration and monitoring
of the social policies;
 It focus on the family, giving special attention to the territory issue.
Access to Food
Bolsa Família
School meal (PNAE)
Cisterns
Low-income restaurants
Urban Agriculture / Community Gardens
Food Banks
Food to specific population groups
Healthy food / Promotion of healthy habits
Distribution of Vitamin A and Iron
Food and nutrition for the indigenous peoples
Food and nutrition education
SISVAN
Workers’ Food Program (PAT)
Unburdened basic food basket
Strengthening of Family Agriculture
PRONAF
Family Agriculture Insurance
Crop Insurance – More Food
Acquisition of food (PAA)
ZERO HUNGER
Income generation
Social and professional qualification
Solidarity economy and productive inclusion
CONSADs
Productive organization of the poor communities (PRODUZIR)
Development of garbage collectors’ cooperatives
Oriented productive microcredit
Articulation, social
mobilization and control
Social control councils
Citizenship education and social
mobilization
Training for the public agents
Mobilizations and donations
Partnerships with companies and
entities
FOOD AND NUTRITION SECURITY
 Law 11.346, 09/15/2006 – LOSAN:
 It creates the National System on Food and Nutrition Security
(SISAN) to ensure the Human Right to Adequate Food (DHAA) in
Brazil;
 It reaffirms the State’s duties to respect, protect, promote and
offer adequate food;
 Tools for monitoring and chargeability of the DHAAs;
 It institutionalizes the National Policy on Food and Nutrition
Security.
FOOD AND NUTRITION SECURITY
Family Agriculture
 Food Acquisition Program of the Family Agriculture – PAA
 To contribute to ensure the access to food in good quantities, good quality and
regularly for the population in situation of food and nutrition insecurity.
Direct beneficiaries: Family farmers, including rural extractors, quilombolas, people in
settlements, indigenous communities and rural people that live alongside rivers.
 Food Acquisition Program of the Family Agriculture– PAA/ Milk
 To offer milk to families in situation of food and nutrition insecurity and to promote the
family production of milk.
Amount:
 2003: US$ 91 million - (39.500 people)
 2007: US$ 168 million – (8,7 million people)
 2008: US$ 15 million - (11,4 million people at the moment).
FOOD AND NUTRITION SECURITY
 Urban Agriculture / Community Gardens
 To consolidate in Brazil the urban and periurban agriculture, in order to increase the
self-supply of food for the families and communities involved.
To increase the urban supply of vegetables, promoting the food and nutrition security,
with productive social inclusion and ecological awareness.
They benefit 806 thousand families in 4.852 units.
 Food Banks
 To promote the food education, discouraging food waste and acknowledging their
nutritional value.
A large network of supply and entities for social assistance.
The resource applied between 2003 and 2007 was equal to US$ 8,3 million,
consolidating 88 units, and 18 states, 55 in operation. Average donation equal to 600
tons/month.
FOOD AND NUTRITION SECURITY
 Low-income restaurants:
To increase the supply of nutritional food to the low-income population, at low prices;
Priority assistance: low-income workers, unemployed, students, aging people and
populations in situation of risk in the urban centres and suburban areas.
The resource used between 2003 and 2007 was equal to US$ 70 million, consolidating
121 units, and 25 states, 52 in operation. Average: 1,5 million meals/month.
Community Kitchens:
To increase the supply of adequate food to the low-income population and to contribute
to the reduction of the number of people in situation of food and nutrition insecurity.
They offer support to the food supply in the suburban areas where there is a great lack of
food.
 The resource used between 2003 and 2007 was equal to US$ 16 million, consolidating
624 units, and 20 states, 337 in operation.
FOOD AND NUTRITION SECURITY
 Cisterns
 The access to fresh water, the most fundamental food.
 Objective: To support states, municipalities, federal organs and civil society
entities in the implementation of projects that aim at ensuring the access to
fresh water by means of the construction of cisterns.
 The cisterns collect and store the rainwater, by means of pipes (water for
consumption and production of food).
 Beneficiaries: low-income families in the Brazilian Northeast region.
 In 2003, US$ 16 million were used in the construction of 6.553 cisterns.
 This year, US$ 25 million were used so far in the construction of 9.076
cisterns.
 Between 2003-2008, 203.750 cisterns were built, benefiting more than 1
million people.
FOOD AND NUTRITION SECURITY
 Distribution of Food Baskets
 The action of “distribution of food to specific populations” delivers, for free, food baskets in
order to fight against hunger, to families in situation of food and nutrition insecurity.
 Destined to indigenous communities, remaining communities of quilombolas, communities of
terreros, people in settlements who are waiting for a land reform and who were affected by the
construction of dams, and municipalities in situation of emergency and/or public calamity.
 Identification of food insecurity by the beneficiary families of the program:
• The risk of food insecurity with hunger, the worst situation of food insecurity, dropped 30%
due to the distribution of food baskets.
• Food security increased 41%.
• The risk of food insecurity with hunger, the worst situation, was completely eradicated in, at
least, four communities.
FOOD AND NUTRITION SECURITY
 Food and Nutrition Education
“To promote food and nutrition education, aiming at offering adequate and healthy
food, in a way that encourages the autonomy of the individual and the social
mobilization, respecting the cultural and regional characteristics of the different social
and ethnical groups, under the perspective of SAN and the guarantee of the DHAA.”
Actions:
 Brazil Kitchen
 The project aims at offering courses of how to avoid and reduce food waste
 Public Convocation (public announcement): support to state and municipal initiatives.
 Objective: to select projects based on clear criteria, in order to support local
initiatives, respecting the culture and the food diversity in the educational actions.
 Distribution of educational materials
FOOD AND NUTRITION SECURITY
 Consortiums for Food Security and Local Development - CONSAD:
 Regional organization of the poor municipalities, with cultural, social and economic
identity, constituted as a civil association without profit purposes.
 Objectives of the Policy on Local Development and Food Security
• To develop and consolidate the organization of the community with the public
powers in the territory, potentiating their ability of being the protagonist of the social
and economic development in the region, by means of the institutional articulation,
training in management of social policies, strategic planning and citizenship
participation;
• Implementation of regional productive projects by means of the decentralization of
the federal public resources, with the contribution from the states and municipalities.
 40 units
INCOME TRANSFER
Bolsa Família Program:
 Conditioned income transfer program (health and education), destined to the fight
against poverty;
 It exists in every Brazilian municipality (5.564);
 It benefits 11 million poor families – 45 million people, that is to say, ¼ of the Brazilian
population, with monthly income of up to US$ 71,00 (R$ 120) per capita;
 In 2008, around US$ 6,2 billion (R$ 10,4 billion) will be transferred directly to the
families;
Average benefit equal to US$ 45,00 (R$ 75) per family;
 Single Registry of the Social Programs - CADÚNICO:
The database is a tool for planning and management of the social programs and the public
policies in every government level.
THE IMPACTS OF THE BOLSA FAMÍLIA PROGRAM
 Nutrition Call, 2006
 The inclusion in the Bolsa Família Program reduces the risk of chronic malnutrition in
children, especially for the beneficiary children among 6 and 11 months, to whom the risk
is 62,1% lower.

The main use of the benefit received by the families is directed to food:
• 86% report an improvement in the eating habits of the family
•
73% report that the variety of food consumed has increased
•
93% of the beneficiary children eat 3 or more meals a day
Source: Data UFF/UFBA, 2006
 Among the families surveyed, the money received from the program was spent with:
 Food (76,4%);
 School materials (11,1%); and
 Clothes and shoes (5,4%).
Source: Survey with the PBF beneficiaries on the Conditions of Food and Nutrition Security. April/2006
Results:
Implementation of the Right to Food in Brazil
 Brazil has already achieved the Millennium Development Goal to reduce by half the extreme
poverty. That goal was defined by the United Nations, to be achieved until 2015 (goal 1). The
goal was changed to a reduction of ¼ until 2015:
1992: 11,73 % of the population used to live with less than US$1 per day
2006: 4,69% of the population used to live with less than US$1 per day
14 million Brazilians were taken out of extreme poverty since 2003
 In the tropical Semiarid region, between 1996 and 2005, the child malnutrition was reduced
by 63%. According to a 2005 study, the impact of the Bolsa Família Program to reduce the child
malnutrition was equal to 30% for all children, with an even greater effect of 62% for all
children between 6 and 11 months.
For the first time, Brazil has achieved a human development index of 0.8 - to be inserted into
the group of countries that have a high level of development, according to UNDP.
ROSILENE CRISTINA ROCHA
DEPUTY EXECUTIVE SECRETARY
TELEPHONES: 55 61 3433-1087/1088
E-MAIL: rosilene.rocha@mds.gov.br