Master's Thesis from the year 2013 in the subject Environmental Sciences, grade: 1,3, Cologne University of Applied Sciences (The present paper evaluates the two approaches Fome Zero and Oportunidades of Brazil and Mexico as strategies to improve food security. The analysis shows that various significant differences but also similarities exist in the structures of both countries), language: English, abstract: The present paper evaluates the two approaches Fome Zero and Oportunidades of Brazil and Mexico as strategies to improve food security. The analysis shows that various significant differences but also similarities exist in the structures of both countries. The Brazilian strategy, which was established in 2003, achieved exemplary good results in the fight against hunger and poverty because the food security strategy combines structural with emergency policies and includes various approaches in order to strengthen rural development. The extensive inclusion of family farmers for the supply of the national food demand keeps Brazil relatively independent from food imports and prevents the direct transmission of extreme international price fluctuations of essential food items to low-income households. The good result in poverty alleviation in Brazil caused a significant strengthening of the people’s purchasing power and thus provoked an economic growth in recent years which exceeds the capacities of the prevailing infrastructure and leads to a high demand of natural resources. This current situation provokes an unsustainable development. Mexico’s joining of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) in 1994 confronted millions of farmers with cheap, subsidized corn which is imported from the United States. This situation weakened the agricultural food production in Mexico and caused a dependency on international food products. Extreme price shocks provoked a considerable increase in national poverty rates in recent years, especially among rural farmers. The government’s efforts in poverty alleviation by the establishment of the Targeted and Conditional Cash Transfer Program (TCCTP) Oportunidades in 1997 are insufficient, because this strategy principally suppresses the consequences of poverty but does not counteract its most important reasons. Additionally, in Mexico, overweight is not recognized in a sufficient manner as part of food insecurity. Furthermore, the country shows fundamental deficiencies in rural development and in the provision of adequate infrastructure. Finally, the country lacks of exit strategies and thus prevents low-income families from getting out of poverty. In the end, within this paper a framework of eight essential steps of a food security strategy was elaborated, which is considered not to be country-specific and therefore be useful on an international level.

Beginning to End Hunger presents the story of Belo Horizonte, home to 2.5 million people and the site of one of the world’s most successful food security programs. Since its Municipal Secretariat of Food and Nutritional Security was founded in 1993, Belo Horizonte has sharply reduced malnutrition, leading it to serve as an inspiration for Brazil’s renowned Zero Hunger programs. The secretariat’s work with local family farmers shows how food security, rural livelihoods, and healthy ecosystems can be supported together. In this convincing case study, M. Jahi Chappell establishes the importance of holistic approaches to food security, suggests how to design successful policies to end hunger, and lays out strategies for enacting policy change. With these tools, we can take the next steps toward achieving similar reductions in hunger and food insecurity elsewhere in the developed and developing worlds. Learn more about Jahi and his work on his personal website.

Harvest of Want demonstrates how hunger and malnutrition can exist simultaneously with growth in agricultural production. It points out a series of factors that have generated food insecurity throughout much of Central America and Mexico. .

This thesis explores the role of Brazil's Food Acquisition Program (Programa de Aquisição de Alimentos or the PAA) in facilitating food security and food sovereignty. It specifically explores how this government program sources local food from smallholder farmers on agrarian reform settlements in the Pontal do Paranapanema region of São Paulo state to feed local food vulnerable populations. This thesis explores the incentives and challenges associated with such a project for both the farmers and the government and how the program incorporates pillars of food sovereignty. This thesis will also explore the significance of a transition from a neoliberal globalized food regime towards a localized food-sovereignty regime in the region's rural communities.

In 1997, Mexico launched a new incentive-based poverty reduction program to enhance the human capital of those living in extreme poverty. This book presents a case study of Progresa-Oportunidades, focusing on the main factors that have contributed to the program's sustainability, policies that have allowed it to operate at the national level, and future challenges.