This Wednesday, the Brazilian government formalized the resumption of the Food Acquisition Program (PAA, in Portuguese), which consists of purchasing fruits, vegetables, milk and other products supplied by small producers to provide food for populations facing vulnerable situations.
In its updated version, the program plans to boost the participation of small Indigenous producers and farmers from traditional communities, such as female farmers. The measures to be taken by the program intends to guarantee that ed women will be at least 50 percent of all suppliers.
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“To us, female farmers, this is of great importance because we will be able to show that we can contribute to our municipalities, states and the whole country. In order to us make ends meet and feed our families, this program will include a broad area,” said farmer Denise Alves dos Santos, from the town of Vitória de Santo Antão (Pernambuco state).
The launch event took place in the city of Recife, northeast Brazil, and was also marked by the reinstallation of the National Council for Rural Sustainable Development (Condraf, in Portuguese) and the creation of the Rural Women's Productive and Economic Organization Program.
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Lula gave a shorter speech than usual due to a delay in the event. When talking about the importance of fighting hunger, he recalled his personal experiences.
“Those who have never dealt with hunger don’t know how terrible it is. I ate bread for the first time at seven years old; those who have never lived in such a situation don’t know how good it is to have a slice of bread,” Lula said.
Resumption
PAA was launched in 2003 during Lula’s first presidential mandate. The program aimed to guarantee food and nutritional security for the Brazilian population and, at the same time, to strengthen food production by family farmers. The initiative was completely dismantled during the governments of Michel Temer (Brazilian Democratic Movement) and Jair Bolsonaro (Liberal Party).
“Currently, there are 33 million people facing hunger [in Brazil]. It seems that PAA comes as a crucial policy for us to overcome this hunger scenario by strengthening peasant farming. In order to tackle hunger, we need to strengthen peasant farming, and that’s PAA's horizon," said Felipe Caetano, a member of the board of the Peasant Popular Movement (M, in Portuguese).
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Organized by the Ministry of Development, Social Assistance and Fight against Hunger (MDS, in Portuguese) and Ministry of Agrarian Development (MDA, in Portuguese), the program allows public agencies to purchase products directly from ed family farmers, paying due prices applied by the market.
The food is provided directly to people facing food and nutritional insecurity, as well as to entities in the social assistance network, community kitchens, day care centers and public and philanthropic health, education and justice networks.
