\n– Climate crisis impacts food production<\/a><\/div>\n
Pioneering studies carried out in Brazil, such as the research of physician Josu\u00e9 de Castro<\/a> (1908\u20131973), established direct relationships between hunger and poverty, explains Marcelo Neri, an economist and director of the Center for Social Policy at the Getulio Vargas Foundation (CPS-FGV). \u201cIn recent years, studies have begun to indicate that financial poverty must be eradicated to reduce food insecurity in Brazil, but that doing so alone is not enough,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n In 2021, 62.9 million Brazilians (29.6% of the country’s total population) were categorized as low-earners, with a household income per capita of less than R$497 per month, according to the Map of New Poverty published by FGV last year. The number fell in 2023, returning to 2020 levels of around 53 million people in this income bracket. The federal government has tripled the amount paid out by the Bolsa Fam\u00edlia\/Aux\u00edlio Brasil welfare program since 2020 and increased the number of people eligible from 14 million to 21 million. However, food insecurity only fell from 36% to 34% in the same period, a change considered very small. \u201cIt is surprising to note that during the pandemic, there was a disparity between measures to reduce monetary poverty and food insecurity,\u201d Neri highlights.<\/p>\n L\u00e9o Ramos Chaves\u2009\/\u2009Revista Pesquisa FAPESP\u2002| Kimie Shimabukuro\u2009\/\u2009Getty Images<\/span>The food system concept emerged to encompass different stages of the food production processL\u00e9o Ramos Chaves\u2009\/\u2009Revista Pesquisa FAPESP\u2002| Kimie Shimabukuro\u2009\/\u2009Getty Images<\/span><\/p><\/div>\n He points out that school closures during the pandemic affected one of the country\u2019s key food security policies \u2014 the National School Meals Program (PNAE), responsible for providing food to 40 million students \u2014 which may have caused a greater impact on food insecurity than poverty. According to the researcher, the fact that the federal budget for school meals has not been adjusted for six years and the 2019 disbanding of the National Council for Food and Nutritional Security (CONSEA), which served to advise the government on public policies related to nutrition and food security, also exacerbated the situation. \u201cWe are looking a lot at income but very little at hunger,\u201d argues the economist.<\/p>\n Rooted in the issue of world hunger, the concept of food security emerged after the Second World War (1939\u20131945) with the aim of identifying situations related to food access and based on the perception that food needed to be produced in sufficient quantity to feed a rapidly expanding global population. \u201cToday, in addition to ensuring a sufficient calorie intake, the Brazilian concept of food security encompasses nutrition and food sustainability, expanding the notion beyond production,\u201d observes nutritionist Elisabetta Recine of the University of Bras\u00edlia (UnB) and President of CONSEA, which was recreated in 2023. Nutritionist Dirce Maria Lobo Marchioni of the University of S\u00e3o Paulo (USP) reports that as the concept of food safety broadens, it has recently begun to include the principle of environmental preservation \u2014 the idea that diets should be healthy to help conserve the planet.<\/p>\n Another concept that has guided studies on food insecurity over the last five years is the food system, which encompasses the journey food takes from farm to fork \u2014 the stages through which it is grown, caught, hunted, processed, packaged, transported, distributed, sold, purchased, prepared, eaten, and discarded. Following this approach, scientists are working to identify the bottlenecks in each link of the system \u2014 the characteristics of which differ depending on the country or city \u2014 as a basis for seeking solutions to the issue of hunger. From this perspective, one objective may be to identify whether the difficulties in accessing food are due to a lack of healthy products available in a given region or to high levels of waste. S\u00edlvia Helena Galv\u00e3o de Miranda, an agricultural engineer from USP\u2019s Luiz de Queiroz College of Agriculture (ESALQ), explains that agriculture research carried out in the 1950s and 1960s already highlighted the need to look at production chains and their environments, rather than production alone. \u201cThis wider perspective made it possible to identify that sanitary standards in animal slaughter needed to be improved, for example, and that fruit transportation conditions could be improved to increase productivity and product quality,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n Eduardo Cesar\u2009\/\u2009Revista Pesquisa FAPESP | L\u00e9o Ramos Chaves\u2009\/\u2009Revista Pesquisa FAPESP<\/span>It is mostly small businesses that produce healthy foods consumed in BrazilEduardo Cesar\u2009\/\u2009Revista Pesquisa FAPESP | L\u00e9o Ramos Chaves\u2009\/\u2009Revista Pesquisa FAPESP<\/span><\/p><\/div>\n At the World Conference of Science Journalists (WCSJ), which took place in Medell\u00edn, Colombia, at the end of March, sociologist Jenny Wiegel, regional coordinator of the International Center for Tropical Agriculture (CIAT), shared the results of her research into food systems in cities in the Global South. In a 2019 study, she analyzed the food system in the Colombian city of Cali. The study was based on the observation that 51.3% of families were experiencing food insecurity and that children and adolescents in the municipality were on average more overweight and obese than the same age group in the Pacific region. In addition, Cali was found to have had the highest values of food waste in the entire country. \u201cGiven this situation, our hypothesis was that reducing food insecurity is inextricably linked to the search for food waste reduction strategies,\u201d said the sociologist during the conference. Wiegel also did research in Nairobi, Kenya. In the city of around 4.55 million inhabitants, 60% of people live in slums and 65% of businesses that sell food are open-air market stalls. Her study found that 9% of the population was deficient in vitamin A, 21% deficient in iron, and 83% deficient in zinc. \u201cWe observed that 70% of the fruit eaten by the city’s low-income population was banana, suggesting that public nutrition can be improved by increasing the variety of fruit available at street markets, in addition to creating policies to ensure they are accessible to the low-income population,\u201d proposed Wiegel.<\/p>\n But what characterizes the food systems of an enormous country like Brazil and what are its bottlenecks? Answering this question is one of the central objectives of the Brazilian National Institute for Science and Technology (INCT) for Combating Hunger, founded at the end of last year with funding from the Brazilian National Council for Scientific and Technological Development (CNPq). Under Marchioni\u2019s leadership, the center will use the concept of food systems as a basis for coordinating different fields of knowledge. She explains that generally speaking, the agro-industrial system, which produces raw materials for foreign markets, is predominant in Brazilian agriculture. The FAO data for 2022 indicate that in recent years, Brazil has remained the fourth largest grain producer in the world and the second largest exporter. As a result, Marchioni says, the country faces challenges related to the production of healthy and varied foods, such as fruits and vegetables, for the domestic market. \u201cWe need to systematize and deepen our knowledge of our bottlenecks. Brazil has multiple food systems, making the fight against hunger an even more complex challenge,\u201d she explains. The Yanomami food system, for example, is based on growing crops, hunting, and collecting fruits and insects, in stark contrast to urban populations, who usually buy their food from stores and open-air markets.<\/p>\n Eduardo Cesar\u2009\/\u2009Revista Pesquisa FAPESP | L\u00e9o Ramos Chaves\u2009\/\u2009Revista Pesquisa FAPESP\u2002<\/span>About 30% of food in the country is thrown out, a percentage considered high compared to other countriesEduardo Cesar\u2009\/\u2009Revista Pesquisa FAPESP | L\u00e9o Ramos Chaves\u2009\/\u2009Revista Pesquisa FAPESP\u2002<\/span><\/p><\/div>\n The INCT was born from the Working Group on Public Policies to Combat Food Insecurity and Hunger, created by Vahan Agopyan, who was at the time dean of USP and is now S\u00e3o Paulo State Secretary of Science, Technology, and Innovation. \u201cThe working group combined the experience of more than a dozen research groups at the university that studied food, food security, economics, and public policy,\u201d says Agopyan. The group, coordinated by Miranda from ESALQ-USP, drafted 39 recommendations for the formulation of public policies, including the creation of minimum income and food and nutrition education programs, the development of online platforms to coordinate civil initiatives related to food security, strengthening of the federal policy for basic food stocks, and more. \u201cOne of the surprising things about the report is that most of the recommendations do not require huge investments,\u201d says Agopyan. Some of the guidelines recommend the development of integrated measures across public institutions in the state of S\u00e3o Paulo, such as state schools and universities, to search for answers to society’s biggest hunger-related questions and to create mechanisms to formalize the work of family farmers and help them join the food commercialization and distribution system. The secretary points out that universities and researchers strive to translate scientific information into practical proposals for public policies. \u201cTransforming research findings into recommendations for public managers is a complex process. Without this work, legislators would find it difficult to understand the results and incorporate them into legislation,\u201d he warns.<\/p>\n In addition to the concept of food systems, another element that has guided recent studies on hunger is the climate crisis. Marchioni highlights that in Geografia da fome<\/em> (The geography of hunger; 1946), Josu\u00e9 de Castro (see<\/em> Pesquisa FAPESP issue n\u00ba 324<\/em><\/a>) reflects on the relationship between hunger and ecology, but global climate change has led to new and challenging factors for academics.<\/p>\n These new investigative approaches were punctuated by two dossiers published by the medical journal The Lancet<\/em> in 2019, systematizing the argument that science needs to seek coordinated solutions to three major challenges that have only been addressed individually until recently: malnutrition, obesity, and the climate crisis. The reports showed that malnutrition in all its forms, including obesity and undernutrition, causes 19% of premature deaths worldwide. The term syndemic, coined by American anthropologist and physician Merrill Singer in the 1990s, is used to describe a situation where two or more diseases interact in such a way that they cause greater harm than they would separately. In recent years, the meaning has evolved and the term has been adopted by researchers investigating the complexity of global hunger. Malnutrition, obesity, and the climate crisis have thus come to be considered as syndemics that share a common determinant: food systems. \u201cThese systems are the main drivers of poor health and environmental degradation. Urgent global efforts are needed to collectively transform diets and food production,\u201d urge the authors of one of the reports.<\/p>\n L\u00e9o Ramos Chaves\u2009\/\u2009Revista Pesquisa FAPESP<\/span>19% of premature deaths worldwide are the result of hunger and obesity caused by inadequate nutritionL\u00e9o Ramos Chaves\u2009\/\u2009Revista Pesquisa FAPESP<\/span><\/p><\/div>\n The Lancet<\/em> dossiers recommend developing policies with the potential to reduce the global consumption of foods such as red meat and sugar by 50% and increase the intake of foods considered healthy \u2014 such as nuts, fruits, vegetables, and legumes \u2014 by 100%, arguing that doing so could prevent 10.8 to 11.6 million deaths every year. They also stress that agriculture needs to be reoriented towards the cultivation of food for domestic consumption, while incorporating practices to preserve biodiversity and reduce water consumption and carbon dioxide emissions. Halving food losses across the entire supply chain, from production to consumption, is another recommendation. Andr\u00e9a Rossi Scalco of S\u00e3o Paulo State University (UNESP), Tup\u00e3 campus, whose research on food waste reduction strategies was funded by FAPESP, explains that it is estimated that 30% of the food produced in Brazil is thrown away \u2014 a percentage considered high. Specific legislation is therefore needed to regulate the disposal of products that cannot be sold but are suitable for consumption. \u201cArgentina, Colombia, and Mexico, for example, have laws that oblige commercial establishments to donate this food, stipulating the necessary conditions,\u201d she explains.<\/p>\n Despite the lack of specific legislation, technological advances can contribute to improved food use. Nutritionist Eliana Bistriche Giuntini of the Food Research Center (FORC), one of the Research, Innovation, and Dissemination Centers (RIDCs) funded by FAPESP, gives an example of a technique developed to produce green banana flour. \u201cBanana is a sensitive fruit and producers record significant losses throughout the supply chain. Selling the product while it is still green, to be used to make flour, offers a potential way of mitigating this waste,\u201d she points out. A patent for the methodology has been filed by FORC. The secret is to maintain the starch\u2019s resistance during production of the flour, avoiding the nutritional losses caused by inadequate processing.<\/p>\n Artificial intelligence (AI) resources offer other alternatives in the search for solutions to the problem of world hunger. A group of researchers from MapBiomas, a collaborative network of nongovernmental organizations (NGOs), universities, and technology startups, has been using AI to analyze satellite images of cattle pastures across Brazil since 2008. Remote sensing expert Laerte Guimaraes Ferreira of the Federal University of Goi\u00e1s (UFG), current director of programs and scholarships at the Brazilian Federal Agency for Support and Evaluation of Graduate Education (CAPES), says that pasture areas, which currently occupy around 20% of Brazil\u2019s national territory, could be used to double food production in the country without increasing deforestation. To do so, she says investment is needed in the recovery of degraded pastures and intensification of livestock farming, which would free up pasture areas for other uses.<\/p>\n Bloomberg\u2009\/\u2009Getty Images\u2002| Paulo Fridman\u2009\/\u2009Corbis via Getty Images<\/span>Climate crisis and extensive cultivation of products for the foreign market, such as soy, have exacerbated food insecurityBloomberg\u2009\/\u2009Getty Images\u2002| Paulo Fridman\u2009\/\u2009Corbis via Getty Images<\/span><\/p><\/div>\n Antonio Mauro Saraiva of USP and the Combating Hunger INCT conducts research into how AI can contribute to the development of small-scale farmers who sell products for local consumption. Considering the complexity of food systems, Saraiva maintains that AI is essential in research and the formulation of public policies, since information on food is spread across different databases, such as EMBRAPA, the Agronomic Institute (IAC), the Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics (IBGE), state and municipal departments, and others. In response to the Lancet<\/em> recommendations, many researchers have suggested that food security measures need to impact two or three links in a food system simultaneously. \u201cWe cannot solve hunger by changing just one factor, and AI is crucial to integrating all of the dimensions involved,\u201d concludes the engineer, who is also part of the Center for Artificial Intelligence funded by FAPESP through an agreement with IBM.<\/p>\n A survey by the publishing house Elsevier on global scientific output related to the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) set by the United Nations (UN) ranked Brazil fifth in the world for studies into hunger and sustainable agriculture between 2019 and 2022. With 10,000 articles published in the period, the country\u2019s scientific output was 110% above the world average.<\/p>\n The Brazilian National Council for Scientific and Technological Development (CNPq) and the Brazilian Federal Agency for Support and Evaluation of Graduate Education (CAPES) were placed 3rd<\/sup> and 4th<\/sup> respectively among funding agencies that invested the most in research related to SDG 2, which aims to eradicate hunger. The survey data came from the SciVal platform, which provides research results from more than 20,000 institutions in 230 countries.<\/div>\n Projects Scientific articles Reports![\"\"](\"https:\/\/revistapesquisa.fapesp.br\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/07\/RPF-insuf-alimentar-PF-2023-06-site-2-1140.jpg\")
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\n <\/picture>Alexandre Affonso \/ Revista Pesquisa FAPESP<\/span>\n![](\"\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/07\/012-019_inseguranca-alimentar_328-2023-05-info-2-640.png\")
\n <\/picture>Alexandre Affonso \/ Revista Pesquisa FAPESP<\/span>\n![](\"\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/07\/012-019_inseguranca-alimentar_328-2023-05-info-3-640.png\")
\n <\/picture>Alexandre Affonso \/ Revista Pesquisa FAPESP<\/span>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/revistapesquisa.fapesp.br\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/07\/RPF-insuf-alimentar-PF-2023-06-site-5-1140.jpg\")
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\n <\/picture>Alexandre Affonso \/ Revista Pesquisa FAPESP<\/span>\n
\n1.<\/strong> FORC \u2013 Food Research Center (n\u00ba 13\/07914-8<\/u><\/a>); Grant Mechanism<\/strong> Research Grant \u2013 Research, Innovation, and Dissemination Centers (RIDCs); Principal Investigator<\/strong> Bernadette Dora Gombossy de Melo Franco (USP); Investment<\/strong> R$47,236,474.87.
\n2.<\/strong> Artificial Intelligence Center (n\u00ba 19\/07665-4<\/a>); Grant Mechanism<\/strong> Research Grant – Engineering Research Centers Program; Principal Investigator<\/strong> Fabio Gagliardi Cozman (USP); Investment<\/strong> R$7,050,377.09.
\n3.<\/strong> Methodological and statistical innovations in the collection and analysis of dietary data to obtain accurate measurements in epidemiological studies (n\u00ba 16\/20054-6<\/a>); Grant Mechanism<\/strong> Regular Research Grant; Principal Investigator<\/strong> Dirce Maria Lobo Marchioni (USP); Investment<\/strong> R$148,348.66.
\n4.<\/strong> Sustainability in food distribution: practices for preventing and reducing food waste in supermarket retail, aimed at improving food and nutritional security (n\u00ba 21\/10489-3<\/a>); Grant Mechanism<\/strong> Regular Research Grant; Principal Investigator<\/strong> Andr\u00e9a Rossi Scalco (UNESP); Investment<\/strong> R$71,885.01.
\n5.<\/strong> Technological characteristics of genotypes of the common bean (Phaseolus vulgaris L.) in water deficit conditions (n\u00ba 11\/19437-4<\/a>); Grant Mechanism<\/strong> Regular Research Grant; Principal Investigator<\/strong> S\u00e9rgio Augusto Morais Carbonell (IAC); Investment<\/strong> R$245,461.65.<\/p>\n
\n<\/strong>SWINBURN, B. A. et al<\/em>. The Global Syndemic of Obesity, Undernutrition, and Climate Change: The Lancet Commission report<\/a>. The Lancet<\/strong>. vol. 393, n\u00ba 10173, pp. 791\u2013846, feb. 2019.
\nWILLETT, W. et al<\/em>. Food in the Anthropocene: the EAT\u2013Lancet Commission on healthy diets from sustainable food systems<\/a>. The Lancet<\/strong>. vol. 393, n\u00ba 10170, pp. 447\u2013492, feb. 2019.
\nHAINEMANN, A. B. et al<\/em>. Enviromic prediction is useful to define the limits of climate adaptation: A case study of common bean in Brazil<\/a>. Field Crops Research<\/strong>. vol. 286, oct. 2022.
\nANTOLIN, L. A. S. Impact assessment of common bean availability in Brazil under climate change scenarios<\/a>. Agricultural Systems<\/strong>. vol. 191, june 2021.
\nARENAS-CALLE, L. N. et al<\/em>. Rice Management Decisions Using Process-Based Models With Climate-Smart Indicators<\/a>. Frontiers in Sustainable Food Systems<\/strong>. july 2022.<\/p>\n
\n<\/strong>Propostas de combate \u00e0 fome e \u00e0 inseguran\u00e7a alimentar: relat\u00f3rio final.<\/strong><\/a> Universidade de Sa\u0303o Paulo – Grupo de trabalho Poli\u0301ticas Pu\u0301blicas de Combate a\u0300 Inseguranc\u0327a Alimentar e a\u0300 Fome, 2023.
\nMapa da Nova Pobreza<\/strong>.<\/a> Centro de Pol\u00edticas Sociais da Funda\u00e7\u00e3o Get\u00falio Vargas (CPS-FGV). June 2022.<\/p>\n
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