The Food Security Policy Context in Brazil

Brazil currently offers an important conceptual framework for food and nutritional security, and a relevant context of related public policy and programming. Recently, moreover, the country included the right to food among the social rights stipulated in its constitution. These achievements are the result of a longstanding process of public intervention and broad social mobilisation that has involved a variety of stakeholders from the government and civil society. As far as public programming is concerned, several actions that may reflect on food and nutritional conditions were taken in Brazil throughout the twentieth century, such as the minimum wage in 1940, supply programmes, school meals and dining halls for workers in the 1950s, and food supplement programmes in the 1970s (CONSEA, 2009). (...)