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BRAZIL: Hunger-Free Christmas Still Out of Reach

Fabiana Frayssinet

RIO DE JANEIRO, Dec 24 2009 (IPS) - The traditional campaign for a Christmas without Hunger in Brazil is in its 17th year. But in spite of ongoing programmes, food insecurity still affects 15 million people in South America’s giant, according to official figures.

The hunger to be combated is for food, but also “for play, study and dreams,” according to this year’s campaign slogan, Natal sem Fome dos Sonhos (Christmas without Hunger for Dreams). The non-governmental movement Açao da Cidadanía contra a Fome, a Miséria e pela Vida (Citizens’ Action against Hunger and Poverty and For Life) is only appealing for books and toys this time round.

But this does not mean that hunger for food has been eradicated, the movement that started the campaign 16 years ago emphasises.

The late sociologist Herbert de Souza started the campaign as a way of mobilising the whole of society behind the dream of a country without hunger or extreme poverty, where everyone enjoys their rights to citizenship and justice.

Between 1993 and 2005 the campaign collected more than 30,000 tonnes of food, which was donated to 15 million people, as a way of calling attention to the lack of effective policies against hunger.

The government of President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva has implemented programmes like “Fome Zero” (Zero Hunger), introduced when he first took office in 2003, in an attempt to fill the gap.

The Zero Hunger plan is part of a wider programme called “Bolsa Familia” (Family Grant), a conditional cash transfer programme for poor families, carried out by the Ministry for Social Development and the Fight Against Hunger.

Social Development Minister Patrus Ananías said the plan involves cash transfers to guarantee a minimum income for poor families, in return for the fulfilment of certain requirements, like regular school attendance and vaccination for children.

This approach is intended to establish “objective conditions for the eradication of hunger, malnutrition and extreme poverty, in order to break the inter-generational poverty cycle and to promote, in the medium and long term, the emancipation of the families in the programme,” the minister said.

Bolsa Familia officially benefits 12 million families, or 45 million people, in a country with a total population of about 190 million.

Ananías said that its ambitious goals have produced tangible results. The plan provides a monthly payment of between 40 and 97 dollars to each beneficiary family, amounting to a total monthly expenditure of 639 million dollars. Together with other social programmes, it has successfully reduced the country’s high poverty rate.

The Social Development Ministry says 19 million people were lifted out of extreme poverty between 2003, when Lula came to power, and 2008, according to statistics from the private Getulio Vargas Foundation.

The Institute of Applied Economic Research (IPEA) reported that the income of the poorest 10 percent of Brazilian society grew at six times the rate of that of the richest 10 percent, indicating that the inequality gap in the country is narrowing.

These official results are accepted by the Brazilian Institute of Social and Economic Analyses (IBASE), also founded by Herbert de Souza, who since 1993 has been arguing for emergency aid to fight hunger, coining the catchphrase “the hungry are in a hurry.” But IBASE analysts do have reservations about the Bolsa Familia programme, after carrying out an extensive investigation to evaluate its results.

The final report of their study indicated that some six million families in the programme were suffering from moderate to severe food insecurity, which meant that “in the three months prior to the evaluation they had suffered severe food restriction, and even hunger.”

Hunger is the bedfellow of a significant proportion of Brazilian families, which is “unacceptable in a country regarded as the sixth largest economy in the world,” the IBASE study says.

IBASE also recognises positive effects of the Bolsa Familia programme on family nutrition, such as greater “stability of access” and the “greater quantity and variety of food consumed.”

It says, however, that the persistence of high indices of food insecurity implies that hunger in Brazil is a complex issue and the Bolsa Familia programme is not sufficient to guarantee the population’s right to food.

Leonardo Ribas, a consultant with the non-governmental Harpia Harpyia Institute, told IPS that Bolsa Familia, as the government says, stimulates a local microeconomy which in turn drives the macroeconomy. However, the macroeconomy “is linked to a market that excludes people.”

Ribas, a lawyer specialising in legal aspects of the right to food, said the market is a far cry from “an economic model based on solidarity,” and is part of a general scheme that foments large-scale agribusiness, for instance, instead of stimulating family farms.

According to the Agrarian Development Ministry, 75 percent of rural workers are employed on family farms, which produce 70 percent of the beans, 87 percent of the cassava and 58 percent of the milk consumed in Brazil. In practice, it is family farming that guarantees the country’s food security.

Nevertheless, production and sale of food is market-oriented with a profit motive, and the high price of food hits the poorest families worst, according to the IBASE study.

Ribas highlighted the fact that over 50 percent of the Bolsa Familia grants are used by the families to buy food, but the quality of food consumed is still inadequate.

For example, vegetables, which family farming could supply locally at accessible prices, are expensive on the traditional cash market, and high-calorie foods of lower nutritional value are eaten instead, he said.

The IBASE study says 16 percent of the families in receipt of the Bolsa Familia had an undernourished child in the family, 36.8 percent had a family member with anaemia, 31.4 percent had someone with high blood pressure, 8.4 percent had a member with vitamin A deficiency, and 7.4 percent had a case of obesity in the family.

Ribas also pointed to shortcomings in the Bolsa Familia cash transfer system. The complicated payment system involves federal, provincial and municipal institutions and funds are “lost” along the way, he said. Complementary social education and training programmes are supposed to be provided but are not always delivered.

“The syndrome of social vulnerability continues to exist,” said Ribas, who stressed that so far the Bolsa Familia programme has not gone beyond the stage of assistentialism.

For these reasons, the annual campaign for a Hunger-Free Christmas was modified after 2006.

Starting with the information that 24 percent of the Bolsa Familia resources were lost in transit, and were not being received by 11 million of the 45 million official beneficiaries, the organising committees of Açao da Cidadanía went on to identify families that were not receiving the Bolsa, although they were entitled to it.

At present, some 700 committees are training people as local agents of the campaign, who will visit a total of 15,000 families.

The aim is to highlight and correct shortcomings in government policies,16 years after the Christmas without Hunger campaign began.