Supporting Food Production and Food Access through Local Public Procurement Schemes: Lessons from Brazil

Approaches that combine giving vulnerable segments of the population access to food with support to smallholder farmers for food production can offer significant benefits in tackling poverty and hunger. Public procurement can play an important role in these approaches, ensuring supplies for food aid schemes and market opportunities for farmers who otherwise would face great difficulties in establishing advantageous commercial relations. The benefits of such approaches can be very substantial when procurement strategies are implemented in line with local food production and consumption patterns. (?)Supporting Food Production and Food Access through Local Public Procurement Schemes: Lessons from Brazil

Market Alternatives for Smallholder Farmers in Food Security Initiatives: Lessons from the Brazilian Food Acquisition Programme

Policies that support the livelihoods of smallholder farmers are crucial in efforts to tackle poverty and hunger, especially when they are designed to combine different sectors of public intervention. Small farmers account for a significant share of developing countries? rural poor, who in turn account for 75 per cent of the total poor population in those countries (World Bank, 2008). Smallholdings are typically operated by the poor, who make substantial use of labour from their own households and from their equally poor or even poorer neighbours. Moreover, much of their income is usually spent on locally produced goods and services, thereby stimulating the rural off-farm economy and creating additional jobs (Hazell et al., 2007). They are also vital for food production and can play a significant role in increasing the availability of and access to food (United Nations, 2008). Small farmers use several different strategies to secure their livelihoods, with a view to ensuring that their food requirements are met and that they generate enough income for their immediate consumption needs, social purposes and investments. Interaction with agricultural markets is an essential part of these strategies. Markets are where, as producers, smallholders buy their agricultural inputs and sell their products; they are where, as consumers, smallholders use income from the sale of crops or from their non-agricultural activities to buy food and other consumption goods. Improved market access, therefore, is not only important for better-off producers or for the production of cash crops rather than food crops; it is also very important for smallholder farmers (IFAD, 2003). (?)Policies that support the livelihoods of smallholder farmers are crucial in efforts to tackle poverty and hunger, especially when they are designed t

Market alternatives for smallholder farmers in food security initiatives: Lessons from the Brazilian Food Acquisition Programme

[Introduction ...] This study looks at the outcomes of the latter programme for farmers’ market access. Our goal is to identify and discuss key elements that could be explored in further international debate, sharing lessons learned from programmes that combine supporting food production (through trading opportunities targeted at or open to smallholder farmers) with giving vulnerable populations access to food. This is the first study in a series to be conducted by the International Policy Centre for Inclusive Growth (IPC-IG) to compare experiences of this kind. The next phases of the research will discuss India’s PDS and WFP’s Purchase for Progress

The food security policy context in Brazil

[Introduction] 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). Nevertheless, the recent mobilisation around the concepts of food and nutritional security started to acquire significant national scope mainly in the 1980s. Important initiatives from this period include the preparation of the document 'Food Security-Proposal for a Policy to Fight Hunger' by the Ministry of Agriculture in 1985, which offered an important technical discussion; and the mobilisation of the civil society that led in 1986 to the first National Food and Nutrition Conference (CNAN), which played a significant political role (CONSEA, 2009). The following decade also saw significant progress on ideas and activities in the areas of food and nutritional security. In 1993, civil society conducted an important awareness raising campaign called Citizenship Action against Hunger and Poverty and for Life. The campaign fostered substantial mobilisation about hunger in Brazilian society and led to the amassing of thousands of tons of food to be distributed to the needy. Then-President Itamar Franco gave backing to the matter within government. He declared hunger an absolute political priority and assumed responsibility for implementing a proposal on a National Food Security Policy. This commitment led to four important events. (...

Public support to food security in India, Brazil and South Africa: Elements for a policy dialogue

[Introduction ...] Following this introduction, Section 2 presents the conceptual framework on food security that guides this study, and offers succinct data on the three countries based on leading international measures. Section 3 offers a general presentation of the food-security policy agendas, highlighting their broad comparative elements. It explores the leading conceptions, orientations and measurements used. Section 4 deals with the rights-based approach to food security, focusing on the current legal apparatus and accountability mechanisms. Section 5 examines how different stakeholders, particularly civil-society organisations and various levels of government, take part in public interventions. Section 6 considers food production, highlighting two particular issues: how the promotion of small-scale farming is taken into account in food-security policy, and how environmental matters are considered in public support for food production. Section 7 explores major public initiatives on access to food, and draws attention to some relevant experiences of cash transfers, in-kind transfers and public works. Section 8 assesses key challenges and achievements relating to food security in the three countries. Section 9 points out the main issues that could be explored in further policy dialogue. Finally, a summary table of the major themes considered throughout the text is provided in the Annex

Support à la production alimentaire et à l´accès à la nourriture via des achats publics locaux : les leçons du Brésil

Approaches that combine giving vulnerable segments of the population access to food with support to smallholder farmers for food production can offer significant benefits in tackling poverty and hunger. Public procurement can play an important role in these approaches, ensuring supplies for food aid schemes and market opportunities for farmers who otherwise would face great difficulties in establishing advantageous commercial relations. The benefits of such approaches can be very substantial when procurement strategies are implemented in line with local food production and consumption patterns. (?)Support à la production alimentaire et à l´accès à la nourriture via des achats publics locaux : les leçons du Brésil

Apoio à Produção e ao Acesso a Alimentos por meio de Aquisições Públicas Locais: Lições do Brasil

Approaches that combine giving vulnerable segments of the population access to food with support to smallholder farmers for food production can offer significant benefits in tackling poverty and hunger. Public procurement can play an important role in these approaches, ensuring supplies for food aid schemes and market opportunities for farmers who otherwise would face great difficulties in establishing advantageous commercial relations. The benefits of such approaches can be very substantial when procurement strategies are implemented in line with local food production and consumption patterns. (?)Apoio à Produção e ao Acesso a Alimentos por meio de Aquisições Públicas Locais: Lições do Brasil

O Programa de Aquisição de Alimentos da Agricultura Familiar (PAA) e as práticas dos agricultores participantes orientadas ao mercado: Estudo de caso no estado de sergipe

An essential question about policies that aim to foster socio-economic inclusion and income generation - which is the case of policies that support market access - is their capacity to guarantee a sustainable process of the economic capacities of their beneficiaries. In this study, the Brazilian Food Acquisition Programme (PAA) is discussed from this angle, since it offers, among other benefits, an optional market opportunity for targeted food producers. In this case study, conducted in the state of Sergipe, two modalities of PAA that promote links between family farmers' production and local demands through public procurement were considered (CDLAF and CPR-Donation). Our analysis suggests that by offering an important commercial possibility to producers, the PAA plays a significant role in improving their market capabilities, as it promotes a variety of changes in their productive and organizational practices. These changes are due to more regular and predictable access to advantageous market, facilitated by procurement at pre-set purchase prices. Nevertheless, even if the development of these capabilities is essential to facilitate producers' participation in agricultural markets, it is not sufficient to promote further market access, since PAA is currently seen by most of these farmers as the best market channel available