In July of this year, good news made headlines: Brazil was once again removed from the FAO Hunger Map. After nearly a decade of setbacks, international statistics recorded a significant reduction in hunger in the country. Is this a reason to celebrate? Definitely. But it's also a reason to reflect. Because the persistence and recurrence of hunger in a country that is one of the world's largest food exporters reveals profound contradictions that won't be resolved by headlines or fleeting moral outrage.
This good news should serve as a starting point for a broader debate: what do we understand by food and nutritional security? What are the real paths to ensuring it? And, above all, what myths and misconceptions still block a more effective understanding of the problem? This article addresses these issues.
The paradox of hunger in the 21st century
The paradox is familiar, but no less shocking: the world produces enough food to feed more than 10 billion people, yet approximately 735 million still go hungry (FAO, 2023). This brutal reality immediately disproves a view still prevalent in the social imagination: that hunger is a problem of productive scarcity.
It isn't! Hunger is, above all, a problem of access, income, logistics, institutions, and politics. It is also a consequence of historical inequalities and new vulnerabilities created by climate, conflicts, wars, and global crises. In Brazil's case, it's not enough to claim we're producing like never before; perhaps more important is to recognize that, at the same time, the country "fails as always" when it comes to ensuring equitable access to food.
The evolution of the concept of food security
For a long time, food insecurity was treated as synonymous with a lack of food. It was enough to measure available calories: those who lacked access to the bare minimum suffered hunger. This view shaped public policy for decades.
Today, however, the picture is more complex. Hunger and obesity coexist side by side, often in the same countries, cities, and even families. Food insecurity is no longer limited to scarcity, but also to excess and poor-quality diets, marked by the consumption of ultra-processed foods and a lack of essential nutrients. This even occurs in families with sufficient income to afford real food.
The FAO and the World Health Organization (WHO) have been drawing attention to this transition: we are facing a global epidemic of malnutrition in multiple forms (FAO et al., 2022; WHO, 2021). According to recent estimates, obesity and associated diseases surpass hunger as causes of mortality in several regions of the world, including Brazil (Global Nutrition Report, 2022; Global Burden of Disease Study, Afshin et al., 2017; https://www.thelancet.com/article/S0140-6736(19)30041-8/fulltext).
This means that food security must be understood broadly: not just access to sufficient calories, but also to healthy, varied, and culturally appropriate diets. Combating hunger remains urgent, but ensuring nutritional quality and universal accessibility has become equally urgent.
Family farming: the 70% myth
In this more complex debate, some myths continue to distort the diagnosis. One of the most persistent is the claim that family farming accounts for 70% of food production in Brazil. This narrative, repeated in political speeches, official websites, and even academic articles, has gained the status of truth, but it doesn't hold up to analysis.
The misconception stems from a pioneering FAO study, coordinated by Carlos Guanziroli and Silvia Cardim in the late 1990s (Guanziroli & Cardim, Novo Retrato da Agricultura Familiar no Brasil; Brasília, FAO/INCRA, 2000; ), which had the merit of revealing the relevance of family farming, previously invisible in debates about the sector. However, the enthusiastic interpretation of its results gave rise to a myth, reproduced without methodological rigor.
In 2014, Rodolfo Hoffmann, one of the most respected Brazilian statisticians and a reference in agriculture and income studies, dismantled the narrative with a technical note published in the magazine Food and nutrition security. His conclusion was categorical: “the monetary value of all family farming production corresponds to less than 25% of the total expenditure of Brazilian families on food” (Hoffmann, Does family farming produce 70% of the food consumed in Brazil? Food and nutrition security, Campinas, SP, v. 21, no. 1, p. 417–421, 2015. DOI)
The problem with this myth is twofold: it not only creates an unrealistic image of the productive capacity of family farming, but also fosters a false antagonism between family farming and agribusiness. It's based on the idea that only the former produces food, while the latter is focused exclusively on export commodities. This is a caricature.
Family farming is important from economic, social, and political perspectives, but it is heterogeneous: some segments are highly productive and integrated into the market; others, subsistence farming, face extreme vulnerability. Supporting family farming so that it can truly modernize and integrate is necessary and urgent, but this support does not require false justifications, such as the 70% myth. On the contrary, such narratives can imprison part of the family farm sector in the exclusive production of staple foods, when many farmers could expand their income by exploring differentiated niches—including "gourmet" products, destined for renowned chefs and haute cuisine restaurants, aimed at a public willing to pay more, which in no way diminishes its social relevance. It is necessary to free family farming from the obligation to produce "rice, beans, and cassava," recognizing its diversity and its potential to expand. To this end, it is essential to formulate policies that strengthen the sector in its entirety.
Agribusiness: commodities or food?
On the other hand, the assertion persists that agribusiness does not produce food, but only commodities. This dichotomy is not only misleading but counterproductive, because it obscures the sector's true role in domestic supply and food security. Grains like soybeans, corn, rice, and wheat; animal proteins like meat, milk, and eggs; vegetable oils like soybeans and cotton: all are commodities and, at the same time, foods. They form the caloric and protein basis of the Brazilian and global diet. The fact that they circulate in global markets as commodities does not remove their status as food, nor does it reduce their importance for food security.
Brazilian agribusiness accounts for the majority of the stable and scalable supply of food accessible to the population. Without its contribution, domestic supply would be unattainable, nor would Brazil's strategic role in the international market. Furthermore, the sector is one of the main drivers of income, employment, and foreign exchange generation in the country, and this income also contributes to expanding access to food for millions of families. This does not mean ignoring its problems: land concentration, social conflicts, inadequate use of inputs, environmental impacts, and misuse of political power. But reducing the sector to an absolute villain is simplistic and counterproductive. A true debate must recognize both the advances and the contradictions and seek ways to make the sector more sustainable, inclusive, and aligned with food security policies.
Brazil's structural error
How can we understand, then, that an agro-exporting country still faces millions of people experiencing food insecurity? The answer isn't production. Brazil's structural flaw lies in the persistence of deep and multidimensional inequality, which affects not only income but also access to public services, job opportunities, and social mobility, starting with quality education.
The country produces and exports on a global scale, but fails to organize a consistent food and nutrition policy capable of articulating production, popular consumption, and long-term social policies. Part of the time, it subsidizes waste; part of the time, it abandons the most vulnerable. In a scenario of accumulated inequalities and fragmented public policies, hunger resurfaces, even amid abundance.
Where does the wheel lock?
The biggest obstacle, however, may not be technical, but political: the instrumentalization of hunger. Instead of evidence-based public policy, the issue is used as an electoral platform or ideological banner. Each government prefers to invent its own showcase rather than continue with what already exists, dismantling programs and wasting energy. As long as hunger is treated as a spectacle or a rhetorical weapon, it will continue to be perpetuated as a problem.
The path forward is clear, but it requires political will. Production and social protection must be integrated, because food security can only be sustained when there is a stable supply at scale and affordable prices, combined with safety nets that ensure purchasing power for the poorest. This must be achieved through evidence-based policies, with rigorous diagnoses, clear goals, and continuous evaluation of results—not through slogans. It is also essential to promote innovation and productive inclusion, especially for small farmers, who need genuine credit, qualified technical assistance, adapted seeds, and access to modern marketing channels. Likewise, building logistical and institutional resilience is a prerequisite for reducing losses, expanding storage, making rural insurance more intelligent, and, above all, ensuring stable governance so that policies are not dismantled with each change of government. Finally, a fundamental step is to overcome the false narratives that still dominate the debate—such as the idea that family farming accounts for 70% of food production or that agribusiness only produces commodities—and replace slogans with accurate diagnoses capable of guiding consistent, long-term public policies.
Conclusion
The good news that Brazil has once again left the hunger map is encouraging. But it shouldn't deceive us. Hunger is a structural problem, and overcoming it requires persistent policies, intersectoral coordination, and a long-term commitment.
This isn't a technical challenge, but a political and moral one. And the question that challenges us is simple: are we willing, as a society, to abandon slogans and face reality?
Food security isn't achieved with speeches or convenient statistics. It's achieved through competent management, science, innovation, and social justice. The rest is rhetoric—and, as history insists, rhetoric doesn't fill the plate.
For those who wish to delve deeper into the subject, I recommend reading the book Food and Nutrition Security: The Role of Brazilian Science in Combating Hunger, organized by Mariangela Hungria, winner of the 2025 Nobel Prize in Agriculture. The work brings together contributions from different fields of knowledge and offers a comprehensive vision of how Brazilian science can address the challenges of hunger and malnutrition.
This text does not necessarily reflect the opinion of Unicamp.
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