The Brazilian city of Belo Horizonte has been leading the vanguard of the movement for food justice and sustainability. It has pioneered the blueprint to successfully tackle food insecurity, establishing the guarantee for every single man, woman, and child to have a natural right to food. The Right to Food is one of the 30 universal human rights outlined by the United Nations in 1996. Belo Horizonte had 11 percent of the population living in absolute poverty  and over 20 percent of children living in hunger.¹ According to Beginning  to End Hunger, BH experienced social inequity that extended beyond “food, income, and urban infrastructure, exacerbated by preexisting “classism and racism”, and “frequent tumultuous shifts in elite power”. So, the government set out to alleviate this pressing issue. Belo Horizonte decided to make this a reality for all of its citizens. In 1993, an activist  group known as the ‘Movement for Ethics in Politics’ emerged, managing to mobilize up to 30 million people to get involved in their local communities. This movement espoused an ethos of solidarity and advocacy, encouraging  Brazilians to see themselves as citizens beholden to the needs of each other, not just individuals responsible for themselves. The MFEIP aimed to deconstruct the issue of food insecurity, framing it as a policy failure brought on by governmental ineptitude, rather than a personal failing.² This was a revolutionary paradigm shift.

At the time, the then-mayor of Belo Horizonte Patrus Ananias established his peoples’ right to nutritional and nourishing food. He also promised that the government would have a duty and responsibility  to serve the citizenry. To accomplish this objective, he created a Secretariat for Food and Supply, assembling  a task force of over 20 representatives from all ways of life and sectors. This included food producers, religious leaders, consumer groups, and more.³ With the goal of implementing a new food system that works for all, they articulated a mandate that defined access to healthy food as related to social justice.

¹M Jahi Chappell, et al. Beginning to End Hunger : Food and the Environment in Belo Horizonte, Brazil, and Beyond. Project Muse, Oakland, California, 2015.

²Makri, Anita. “How Belo Horizonte’s Bid to Tackle Hunger Inspired Other Cities.” Nature Index, Springer Nature, 28 Sept. 2021, www.nature.com/nature-index/news/how-belo-horizontes-bid-tackle-hunger-inspired-other-cities. Accessed 4 May 2024.

³Makri, Anita. “How Belo Horizonte’s Bid to Tackle Hunger Inspired Other Cities.” Nature Index, Springer Nature, 28 Sept. 2021, www.nature.com/nature-index/news/how-belo-horizontes-bid-tackle-hunger-inspired-other-cities. Accessed 4 May 2024.