Food Insecurity

Brazil (2015)

Committee: General Assembly

Topic: Food Insecurity

In today’s age, when the whole human race has realized the impressive leaps and bounds in a variety of fields, including science and technology, and where many of us enjoy the privileges of a pleasurable life, there exists a group of people, an very substantial number of people who suffer and struggle in the quagmire of Food Insecurity. According to the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United States, between 2011 and 2013, 842 million people suffered from chronic hunger. That represents one out of every eight people in the world. Food Insecurity including hunger, malnutrition, and famine not only causes intolerable human suffering, negatively impact physical and intellectual development but also adversely effects national economic growth and development. In those countries where the food insecurity is almost a ubiquitous existence, the situation gets even worse. For example, in Burundi, a state in Africa, three of eight “Livelihood Zones”, approximately 200,000 people are at a crisis level of food security owing to drought, poverty, the lack of drinking water, and land scarcity.

In an attempt to combat these distressful situations, United Nations has made long-standing efforts in a multitude of ways. United Nations has offered immediate direct assistance both financially and technologically, and established effective organizations such as World Food Programme which classifies hungry and food insecure populations in the world and also made contributions to the establishment of Food Security Monitory Systems. Other well-known UN organizations attacking food insecurity problem can be the Food Agriculture Organization in which all countries have the access to have a meeting in which they debate to reach an agreements and negotiate policies on hunger, food security, and agriculture practices.

Today, nearly a third of the Brazilian population struggles in food insecurity. Millions of Brazilians do not have sufficient food to eat or the food they eat is not healthful enough. However, the root of this issue is not that Brazil fails to produce enough food to fee its civilians. In fact, the food availability resulted from the domestic production of food plus imports and minus exports is more than 340 kg per capita per year, which is one third more than the country’s per capita nutritional requirement. Moreover, the number of Brazil’s average per capita calorie grew steadily over the last three decades at an annual rate of 0.7 percent. Unfortunately, jeopardized by the country’s tremendous inequality in peoples’ income, the lowest-income population has no access to enough food which meets their basic nutritional requirements. The Brazil Government has long placed the food security in priority in its political agenda. According to the constitutional amendment passed by government in 2010, the right to food is part of Brazilians social rights. The policy framework of food-security policy framework in Brazil evolves and develops throughout last a few decades accompanied by significant accomplishments such as the Zero Hunger strategy and the National Food and Nutritional Security Policy (PNSAN).