Photo: City of Curitiba collection

Urbanization affects food systems in many ways, from food production and pricing to the way food is consumed or even wasted, and all of this increases the challenge of ensuring that everyone has access to fair, healthy and sustainable food. Looking at the Brazilian reality, where of the 33 million Brazilians facing severe food insecurity, around 27.4 million live in cities, according to the Inquérito Nacional sobre Insegurança Alimentar no Contexto da Pandemia da Covid-19 no Brasil (II VIGISAN) de 2021/2022 (National Survey on Food Insecurity in the Context of the Covid-19 Pandemic in Brazil), addressing the urban food agenda is urgent.

Mindful of the challenges Brazilian cities face in guaranteeing healthy food for all, the National Secretariat for Food and Nutrition Security (Sesan) committed, in the Federal Government’s Multi-Year Plan (PPA 2024-2027), in the Strategic Plan of the Ministry of Development and Social Assistance, Family and Fight Against Hunger (MDS) and in the Plano Brasil Sem Fome, to proposing and coordinating a national strategy focused on the urban food agenda, developed within the Interministerial Chamber for Food and Nutrition Security (CAISAN), with the support of the Observatory of Food and Nutrition Security Policies of the University of Brasília (Opsan/UnB) and the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO).

Presidential Decree No. 11,822 of December 12, 2023 establishes the National Strategy for Food and Nutrition Security in Cities, a proposal coordinated by MDS in collaboration with the Ministry of Agrarian Development and Family Farming (MDA) and the Ministry of Cities (MCID). The general objective of the strategy is to expand the production, access, availability and consumption of adequate and healthy food, prioritizing peripheral urban areas and populations in situations of vulnerability and social risk.

The National Strategy for Food and Nutrition Security in Cities provides for programs and actions that include the supply and availability of healthy food, the promotion of urban food environments that favor adequate and healthy eating, the production of healthy and sustainable food in and around cities, and the reduction of food loss and waste, among other initiatives, prioritizing city peripheries and ensuring attention to the intersectionalities that deepen social inequities. The definition of the actions to be implemented in each axis of the National Strategy for Food and Nutrition Security in Cities will be preceded by a situational diagnosis of the territory, in order to meet the needs of each city.

During the Webinar presenting Presidential Decree No. 11822/2023, Patrícia Chaves Gentil, Director of the Department for the Promotion of Adequate and Healthy Food at MDS, spoke about how strongly the territorial and intersectional perspective features in the strategy. “We need to have a differentiated view of vulnerabilities, that is, of the most vulnerable population, and to bring together a set of policies in a more integrated and harmonious way within municipalities,” she said.

It was also mentioned that this Strategy should be seen as a major reinforcement of SISAN (National Food and Nutrition Security System), because its implementation in the selected cities will strengthen SISAN’s relationship with municipalities, open up opportunities for exchanges, define good practices and value governance instruments.

For Juliana Tângari, director of Comida do Amanhã, who also took part in the Webinar, municipalities are the owners of the urban food agenda and must plan and address the programs and actions of this agenda in a coherent way, while the Federal Government has an extremely important role as inducer and coordinator, which was very well designed in this highly innovative strategy.

Juliana stressed that the Strategy represents an important regulatory milestone for the urban food agenda and also raised a point of attention: the municipal elections. “We need to see how municipal candidates, or people involved in drawing up government plans in the municipal elections, will actually commit to the urban food agenda as an agenda belonging to municipal policy,” she highlighted.

Attentive to this election period, Comida do Amanhã is working on guidance material for candidates who wish to include the urban food agenda in their programs, which will be launched soon.