A Right to Food Approach: Public Food Banks in Brazil

Abstract

Brazil presents a fascinating case for studying the role of food banks in food and nutrition security. The success of the country in the social policy arena in the past two decades is well documented (Rocha, 2009; HLPE, 2012, pp. 53–55; Kiggundu, 2012). By the end of 2012, Brazil had met four of the eight United Nations Millennium Development Goals, and was well on its way to meeting the other four by their 2015 target date. In fact, the country had reduced extreme poverty and malnutrition by half by the end of 2009, six years ahead of the UN deadline (CAISAN, 2009). Between 1999 and 2009, close to 14 million Brazilians moved out of poverty (Del Grossi, 2010). The incidence of extreme poverty fell from 17.4 per cent of the population in 2001 to less than 9 per cent in 2008, an extraordinary 8.7 per cent reduction (Barros, 2009). The prevalence of undernourishment declined from 11 to 6 per cent of the population from 1990 to 2008 (IFPRI, 2012).