©️AFP
Brasília, 30 July 2025.- Brazil has just officially emerged from the world hunger map, according to the latest report of the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO). Between 2022 and 2024, 40 million Brazilians escaped food insecurity, a victory hailed by President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, for whom the fight against hunger was one of the pillars of his presidential campaign. The rate of severe food insecurity is now less than 2.5 per cent of the population.
« I'm the happiest man in the world », launched an emotional Lula, tears in the eyes, after the FAO announcement. The Brazilian President welcomed the country's return to social justice, stressing that « data will be even better next year », considering that the weight of the year 2022 which he described as very bad is still reflected in the figures.
Brazil's exit from the hunger map is the result of a coordinated government strategy, as noted by the Minister of Development, Washington Dias. The return of the iconic program « Bolsa Família »Lula's revitalization has played a central role, as has the joint mobilization of several ministries and public and private partners to ensure an integrated response to the food crisis.
This victory is not a first. By the end of 2014, Lula had already managed to remove Brazil from the hunger map through ambitious social policies and direct transfer programmes that had improved access to food for the poorest. However, the budget cuts made under the chairmanships of Michel Temer and Jair Bolsonaro, aggravated by the Covid-19 pandemic, had again plunged millions of Brazilians into precariousness.
During the presidential campaign of 2022, Lula had promised to restore strangled social policies over the years and to re-establish the fight against hunger as a national priority. Two years later, the FAO report confirmed that this promise was being fulfilled. For Lula, the battle is not yet over, but the results achieved mark a major turning point in Brazil's social governance.
W.A.
