Small farms and sustainable rural development for food security: The Brazilian experience

Abstract

In the past few years, Brazil has made significant progress in reducing hunger and food and nutrition insecurity. By the end of 2009 it had met the first United Nations Millennium Development Goal of reducing poverty and malnutrition by half, six years ahead of the 2015 deadline. Much of this progress has been achieved through innovative policies and initiatives championed by civil society organisations for over two decades. This paper reviews some of the most important policies and initiatives which are having a beneficial impact on sustainable rural development and food security. Focusing on conditions for small family farmers, the authors describe the main elements of these government programmes as well as relevant civil society initiatives, and the possible lessons to be learned from them. The paper concludes by discussing the challenges the country faces in maintaining recent advances in sustainable rural development and food security.

Keywords:

• Brazil
• food and agricultural policies
• food security
• small family farms
• sustainable rural development

Notes

¹Instituto Nacional de Colonização e Reforma Agrária.

²Ministério do Desenvolvimento Agrário.

³Programa Nacional de Fortalecimento da Agricultura Familiar.

⁴Programa de Aquisição de Alimentos.

⁵Ministério do Desenvolvimento Social e Combate à Fome.

⁶Conselho Nacional de Segurança Alimentar e Nutricional.

⁷Fórum Brasileiro de Segurança Alimentar e Nutricional.

⁸Some notable exceptions must be cited. The Landless Movement (MST) has often refused to participate in councils. Fearing ‘cooptation’, the MST has chosen to remain outside institutionalised spaces of policy debate and development such as the food and nutrition councils. It has preferred to continue making its contributions as a critic of the government.