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How can science, technology, and innovation transform food security in Brazil? The Position Paper Bid analyzes challenges and opportunities in four dimensions of food security: availability, access, use, and stability. Produced by a multidisciplinary team of experts from the INCT Combate à Fome – made up of researchers from USP and other national and international institutions – and with the support of the Red Latinoamericana de Agencias de Innovación (Relai), the report brings together concrete proposals to solve critical problems related to food security in Brazil. To access the full document click on this link.
The position paper entitled Alimentando o Futuro: Ciência, Tecnologia e Inovação para Segurança Alimentar no Brasil (Feeding the Future: Science, Technology, and Innovation for Food Security in Brazil) highlights innovative solutions to problems such as access to drinking water, the modernization of rural infrastructures, and the promotion of sustainable value chains. It also highlights the use of advanced technologies such as artificial intelligence and digital tools to support everything from food production to distribution, strengthening resilience in the face of climate and social challenges. The document highlights the importance of strengthening research networks, developing local technologies, and promoting digital inclusion as fundamental pillars for transforming food systems.
“Food insecurity is not merely the result of food shortages, but a social and political construction. Although most of the world faces food insecurity, the countries of Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC) have higher prevalence rates than the world average (FAO et al., 2023a), with a very unequal internal distribution. While the prevalence of moderate and severe food insecurity was 14.1% in Uruguay and 15.9% in Costa Rica, between 2019 and 2021, it reached 55.8% of the Guatemalan population and 82.5% of Haitians (FAO, 2021),” the document points out.
According to the authors, there are three serious global threats to human health and survival: the pandemics of malnutrition, obesity (and its relationship with the development of chronic non-communicable diseases – CNCDs), and climate change. “These threats, which are interconnected, constitute a global syndemic. Previously seen as divergent and isolated conditions, these have been recognized as synergistic factors that coexist in time and space and share common social determinants.”
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The report
Authored by researchers Dirce Maria Lobo Marchioni, Marcelo Cândido da Silva, Silvia Helena Galvão de Miranda, Antonio Mauro Saraiva, Alexandre Cláudio Botazzo Delbem, Betzabeth Slater Villar, Alisson Diego Machado, Katia Maria Pacheco dos Santos, Joice Genaro Gomes, and Aline Rissatto Teixeira, the report is not limited to food production and consumption, but also addresses all processes related to food, referred to as food systems.
“In order to build healthy and sustainable food systems that promote human health and respect the planet’s limits, actions, programs, and public policies are needed to integrate the various parts of this complex environment, which involves everything from food production, through its distribution and commercialization, to consumption and disposal,” the authors state in the document.
Among the challenges mentioned in the report is water security, which must be considered from the point of view of different technologies, from those known as social technologies (which combine widespread knowledge, social organization, and technical-scientific knowledge) to the most sophisticated technologies, which include artificial intelligence (AI) tools. Concerning social technologies, the document gives the example of the Programa de Cisternas, a low-cost technology developed in Brazil in the context of the need to live with the semi-arid region, which has managed to gain scale and be incorporated into public policy, impacting the lives of thousands of people living in isolated areas of the country. “These technologies can be complemented with more recent technologies, such as natural super-absorbent polymers; soil water retention maps; mulching and terracing techniques that have been adapted to each geography/biome; intelligent irrigation with AI for weather prediction; and digital crop mapping,” they say.
Another challenge is access to transportation modes to support agriculture. As the authors state, “in Latin American and Caribbean countries, there is a need to create, expand, and improve transportation infrastructures (waterways, railways, and highways) to facilitate the flow of food production in a more cost-effective, economic, and environmentally friendly way, as well as to serve as a support point for logistics – a fundamental activity in agricultural production.” According to them, logistics in agriculture is associated with the entire production chain of rural property and is essential for, among other things: ensuring good production; properly storing products; optimizing distribution, reducing costs, guaranteeing quality, and avoiding losses and waste. One solution suggested is the development of applications and platforms to help find and select the best alternatives to the transportation costs associated with each stage of the chain.
For researchers, there are three fundamental pillars to improve food security: the promotion of basic and technological scientific research and the modernization and expansion of ST&I infrastructure as a geopolitical pact in Latin America and the Caribbean; increasing public and private funding for the development of food security ST&I; and the training, attraction, and retention of human resources focused on food security in teaching and research centers. “However, these pillars can only be strengthened through public and private actions to recover or strengthen the research infrastructure of universities and other Institutes of Science and Technology (ICTs),” they say. Thus, this position paper is a practical guide for governments, organizations, and academic communities committed to eradicating hunger and ensuring food security in Latin America.
Access the position paper Alimentando o Futuro: Ciência, Tecnologia e Inovação para Segurança Alimentar no Brasil at this link.
English version: Nexus Traduções
