Brasil Sem Fome: Lessons for the U.S. from the Success of Brazil's Zero Hunger Strategy
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- 5 min read
June 18, 2026
By Brenda Biddle
In my last blog post, I discussed Brazil’s recent anti-hunger strategy, Brasil Sem Fome (BSF, Brazil Without Hunger), which has rapidly reduced food insecurity in a country long marked by deep inequity. Brazil's recent progress against hunger did not emerge overnight. It grew out of decades of local experimentation, national coordination, and sustained collaboration between government and civil society. In this follow-up post, I explore the lessons learned for advocates working to strengthen the right to food in law, policy, and practice in their own towns, cities, and states.
Similarities and Differences Between Brazil and the United States
Brazil and the United States face hunger in very different political, institutional, and social contexts. Even so, comparing the two countries helps clarify what conditions make the right to food more achievable. Brazil offers examples of coordinated public policy, while the United States reveals the structural and political barriers that continue to obstruct a comprehensive response.
Brazil's progress rests on a broad set of institutions and policies that treat hunger as a public responsibility rather than a private failure.
Several features stand out:
The central role of CONSEA in linking civil society to public policy and helping shape a national food security agenda. CONSEA, the National Council for Food and Nutritional Security, serves as a formal institutional space in which civil society can connect with multiple levels of government.
Strong participation from civil society, social movements, and supportive political parties.
The involvement of all three levels of government: national, state, and municipal.
Ongoing dialogue between government and civil society at multiple levels.
The use of food security tools and public databases to identify need and target assistance more effectively.
Community kitchens and public restaurants that provide affordable meals for low-income people.
A universal school feeding program that serves all students while sourcing food from local and sustainable family farmers.
Government action to stabilize parts of the food supply through food stocks and limited market regulation.
Cash transfers through Bolsa Família help low-income families meet basic food needs.
Regular increases in the minimum wage strengthen households' ability to buy food.
Macroeconomic choices, including the use of tax revenue to fund anti-hunger and social protection programs.
In the United States, hunger persists not because solutions are unknown but because the political and institutional conditions for a comprehensive Right to Food Strategy remain weak.
The major obstacles include:
The political power of corporations, including their capacity to lobby government and shape policy outcomes. Citizens United v. FEC, which expanded protections for independent political spending and strengthened corporate influence in elections.
Neoliberal policy frameworks that prioritize markets over human needs.
A persistent lack of political will to address hunger as a matter of economic rights.
Widespread public distrust that the government will respond effectively, especially among people who feel politically excluded.
Low wages and the need for a higher minimum wage.
Heavy reliance on charitable responses instead of a guaranteed public right to food.
Weak data systems for monitoring food insecurity, exacerbated by the termination of the USDA's annual food insecurity report following the 2024 data release.
A weaker culture of organized civil society engagement around food issues than in Brazil.
The need to strengthen people power, social movements, cross-fertilization, and meaningful dialogue with the government.
The tendency to treat food insecurity and sustainable agriculture as separate policy domains.
The absence of a comprehensive national strategy for ending hunger.
At the same time, the United States does contain promising examples of more integrated approaches, including the US Food Sovereignty Alliance, urban agriculture projects/community gardens, and food justice cooperatives such as the Detroit People's Food Co-op. Also noteworthy in the U.S. is the Coalition of Immokalee Workers, whose Fair Food Program has recently been shown to promote the health of farmworker mothers and children. These efforts suggest that stronger alliances are possible, but they remain fragmented and under-resourced compared with Brazil's national framework.
The contrast between Brazil and the United States is not absolute, but it is instructive. Brazil shows what becomes possible when hunger is treated as a matter of rights, governance, and democratic participation. The United States, by contrast, still addresses hunger in a fragmented way, with weaker public coordination and stronger structural barriers such as institutionalized racism and gender discrimination. For advocates of the right to food, this comparison highlights that policy success depends not only on resources but also on political organization, public accountability, and the ability to connect social movements with state action.
Moving Forward for Right to Food Advocates in the US
If Brazil's experience offers one central lesson, it is that hunger can be reduced when policy, movement-building, and democratic participation are treated as part of the same project. For advocates in the United States, moving forward means both pursuing concrete policy change and strengthening the social base capable of demanding it. And, as Molly Anderson, author of Transforming Food Systems: Narratives of Power and the third panelist in the April 2026 meeting, reminded us, the U.S. is capable of building and sustaining large-scale grassroots organizing. She pointed to the Sunrise Movement and Indivisible as examples. The challenge, she said, is to connect right-to-food advocacy with these broader democratic and climate justice efforts while building durable coalitions.
In the United States, where hunger affects 48 million people – approximately 14% of the population – and is present in every county, we have a lot of organizing and advocacy work to do. As Jim McGovern, a representative from Massachusetts in the U.S. Congress, has touted for decades: “Hunger is a political condition.”
Policy Priorities for the US based on Brazil’s Zero Hunger Program
Combine governmental anti-hunger programs with support for sustainable agriculture and family farms, rather than treating them as separate policy arenas.
Work to establish the human right to food in national and state law so that access to food is recognized as a public obligation rather than a matter of charity.
Create a constituent body, such as CONSEA, to connect civil society with government at the local, state, and national levels.
Movement-Building Questions and Strategies to consider
Clarify what is meant in the US by the term civil society and find avenues for change to move between top-down policy reform and bottom-up organizing.
Ask whether the movement should build a broad umbrella coalition of its own or work under an existing umbrella and evaluate the trade-offs of each approach.
Sustain the work by making room for joy, solidarity, and cultural expression within organizing.
Deepen intersectional analysis so that right to food organizing is linked to struggles over labor, race, land, housing, climate, health, and democracy.
Create bonds across silos through deliberate cross-pollination among movements.
Invest in voter engagement and turnout so that hunger and food justice are treated as electoral as well as moral issues.
Create “convergence in diversity,” as proposed by Holt Gimenez and Shattuck in 2011 in their discussion of strategic alliances between members of the progressive and radical trends in the food movement.
The Work Ahead of Us
Advancing the right to food in the United States will require building durable coalitions among groups working to eradicate hunger, expand access to nutritious food, promote sustainable agriculture, confront climate change, and reduce poverty. These efforts must be coordinated across local, state, and national levels to create a unified vision and shared strategies. Establishing an institution similar to Brazil’s CONSEA would offer a formal structure for dialogue between civil society and government—an institutional channel that is currently missing in the U.S. policy landscape. Such a body could help align priorities, elevate community voices, and drive comprehensive, rights‑based food policy. It is important to both believe that “another world is possible” and to take concrete steps to realize it.
