Government food acquisition program turns into law
At an event held Thursday (Jul. 20) at the Planalto presidential palace, Brazilian President Lula sanctioned the law recreating the Food Acquisition Program—PAA in the original Portuguese acronym.
The initiative stipulates that a minimum of 30 percent of public purchases of foodstuffs must stem from family farming for later allocation to projects to tackle hunger.
The program was recreated through a provisional presidential decree in March this year. However, in order to become law, it required the approval of Congress, granted last week, as well as the president’s sanction.
“The government’s investing in the quality of the food for Brazilians, so they have the right to get the necessary calories and proteins and children can have breakfast, lunch, and dinner, and not starve. It helps small and medium rural producers, who often have limited access to markets to sell their products even though they do the planting,” said the president.
This new version of the initiative includes a higher maximum value that can be sold by family farmers individually—BRL 15 thousand, from a previous BRL 12 thousand. Also introduced was the associated Solidarity Kitchen program, aimed to provide free food to the homeless and people facing food insecurity.
The new model also brings back representatives from society in its management, with a minimum 50 percent of women in program implementation, from a former 40 percent.
Figures and coverage
In all, subscriptions from farmers’ associations and cooperatives total over BRL 1.1 billion, with an expected delivery of 248 thousand tons of food produced by approximately 77 thousand families countrywide.
Over 350 different food types were offered: 63 percent of which vegetables and poultry, 18 percent processed, 11 percent meat and fish, eight percent grains, and 0.4 percent seeds and seedlings.
Covered are producers across 1,572 municipalities—49 percent in the Northeast, 19 percent in the North, 15 percent in the Southeast, ten percent in the South, and eight percent in the Central-West.
