Moderate or severe food insecurity affected 7.4 million Brazilian families (or 9.4% of the total) in the last quarter of 2023. The data are from the Continuous National Household Sample Survey (Pnad), released by the Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics (IBGE) this Thursday (25).
According to IBGE, these more than 7 million homes that live with a reduction in the amount of food consumed or with disruptions in their eating patterns are home to 20.6 million people.
The research methodology involves a questionnaire about the household’s food situation in the 90 days preceding the interview. “We don’t talk about people [individualmente]we are talking about people who live in households that have a degree of food security or insecurity”, highlights IBGE researcher Andre Martins.
The household is then classified into four levels, according to the Brazilian Food Insecurity Scale. The food security level demonstrates that that family has regular and permanent access to quality food, in sufficient quantity.
According to IBGE, 56.7 million Brazilian families (comprising 152 million people) are in this situation.
The level of mild food insecurity affects 14.3 million families (43.6 million people) and means that there is concern or uncertainty regarding food in the future, in addition to the consumption of food of inadequate quality so as not to compromise the quantity of foods.
Moderate food insecurity affects 4.2 million families (11.9 million people) and demonstrates a quantitative reduction in food among adults and/or disruption in eating patterns resulting from a lack of food among adults.
Finally, the most severe situation is severe food insecurity, which represents a quantitative reduction of food and disruption in eating patterns resulting from a lack of food among all residents, including children. There are 3.2 million families, or 8.7 million people, who find themselves in this scenario.
Family budgets
In comparison with the last survey on food security, the Family Budget Survey (POF) carried out in 2017 and 2018, however, there was an improvement in the situation.
The percentage of households experiencing food security rose from 63.3% in 2017/2018 to 72.4% in 2023. Those experiencing moderate or severe food insecurity fell from 12.7% to 9.4%. Mild food insecurity also fell, from 24% to 18.2%.
“We had a lot of investment in social programs, in food programs, especially these [transferência de] income. This directly reflects on the scale of food insecurity, which responds well to this type of intervention”, says Martins. “The recovery of income and work is also reflected in food security.”
Another indicator that causes an improvement in the situation is the reduction in food prices. In 2023, for example, food products for consumption at home saw a price drop of 0.52%.
IBGE researcher Leonardo de Oliveira highlights, however, that it is not possible to attribute the progress that has occurred to the year 2023 alone, since five years have passed between the 2017/2018 POF and the Continuous Pnad in the fourth quarter of 2023. And There was no IBGE research on food security between these two.
“It is important to keep in mind that this movement is not a single-year improvement. The result here is a consequence of all the income movements and price movements that occurred between these two periods”, highlights Oliveira. “This result is not just about what happened in the last year, although things that happened in the last year are important.”
The food security situation, however, is still lower than that observed in 2013, when the issue was addressed by Pnad. That year, food security was guaranteed to 77.4% of households, while mild food insecurity affected 14.8% of households, moderate food insecurity, 4.6% and severe food insecurity, 3.2%.
