Following on from this post:-
Brazil’s food exports are feeding the world as millions of Brazilians themselves go hungry, according to agriculture researchers and food scholars. Brazil has increased its agricultural output by 120 percent over the past 20 years and is the world’s top exporter of soy and poultry.
Brazil has the ability to actually feed its entire population, and is continuing to increase its food production. Annual agricultural production growth of 4.3 percent has the country on pace to produce twice what it needs to feed its own population by 2030. Yet the United Nations identifies 7 percent of the population as malnourished and a 2010 report from the International Institute for Sustainable Development labels nearly a third of Brazil’s 199 million people as facing food insecurity, meaning that they do not eat enough or well enough. over 13 million people who are not able to eat enough every day.
Nearly half of all Brazilian farmland is today held by the top 2 percent of landholders, a trend driven by big agribusiness and global trade markets, according to Brazil's Landless Worker's Movement.
Brazil produces enough food to meet demand, but “due to the country’s highly skewed income distribution, the lowest-income population segments are consuming less than their basic nutritional requirements," according to the International Institute for Sustainable Development. Essentially, the poor cannot afford food produced within their own country, and farms are incentivized to export their crops amid rising international market prices for soy and grains.
End poverty, therefore, and you can end hunger, says Dr. Eugenio Diaz-Bonilla, senior research fellow at the International Food Policy Research Institute and a board member of the Inter-American Development Bank. “If you solve poverty, then solve issue of food security,” says Dr. Diaz-Bonilla.
Easier said than done under capitalism!
Brazil’s food exports are feeding the world as millions of Brazilians themselves go hungry, according to agriculture researchers and food scholars. Brazil has increased its agricultural output by 120 percent over the past 20 years and is the world’s top exporter of soy and poultry.
Brazil has the ability to actually feed its entire population, and is continuing to increase its food production. Annual agricultural production growth of 4.3 percent has the country on pace to produce twice what it needs to feed its own population by 2030. Yet the United Nations identifies 7 percent of the population as malnourished and a 2010 report from the International Institute for Sustainable Development labels nearly a third of Brazil’s 199 million people as facing food insecurity, meaning that they do not eat enough or well enough. over 13 million people who are not able to eat enough every day.
Nearly half of all Brazilian farmland is today held by the top 2 percent of landholders, a trend driven by big agribusiness and global trade markets, according to Brazil's Landless Worker's Movement.
Brazil produces enough food to meet demand, but “due to the country’s highly skewed income distribution, the lowest-income population segments are consuming less than their basic nutritional requirements," according to the International Institute for Sustainable Development. Essentially, the poor cannot afford food produced within their own country, and farms are incentivized to export their crops amid rising international market prices for soy and grains.
End poverty, therefore, and you can end hunger, says Dr. Eugenio Diaz-Bonilla, senior research fellow at the International Food Policy Research Institute and a board member of the Inter-American Development Bank. “If you solve poverty, then solve issue of food security,” says Dr. Diaz-Bonilla.
Easier said than done under capitalism!
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