Nutrition security gains: UN confirms Brazil is off the FAO Hunger Map

The 2025 State of Food Security and Nutrition in the World (SOFI) report, published today, confirms that undernourishment in Brazil dropped to below 2.5% — the threshold for inclusion in the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) Hunger Map. This marks one of the fastest and most significant declines in food insecurity “ever recorded,” says the International Panel of Experts on Sustainable Food Systems (IPES-Food).

The country’s 2021–23 average amounted to 3.9% of the country’s total population, with undernourishment defined as lacking calories for an active life. 

Since President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva took office in 2023, the country’s government has made eradicating hunger its top priority under the program Brazil Sem Fome (Brazil without hunger). This program aims to give people access to good food, and its first goal was to move Brazil off the FAO Hunger Map. 

Nutrition Insight explores initiatives driving the country’s achievement with Elisabetta Recine, an IPES-Food panel expert and president of the Brazilian National Food and Nutrition Security Council, who advises Brazil’s government on its hunger policy. 

“These early achievements are important and worth celebrating, but in terms of what’s next, sustained political support for structural reforms is essential to ensure long-term impact.” 

“Going forward, while positive outcomes are being seen, particularly in addressing the first most extreme layers of malnutrition, major structural challenges remain — including gender inequality, racism, extreme land concentration, and deep social disparities.”  

Lifting 40 million out of food insecurity

Since 2020–22, Brazil has lifted 14 million people out of severe food insecurity, reaching 3.4% of the country’s total population in 2022–24. Over the same period, over 40 million people left moderate to severe food insecurity, reaching 28.5 million, or 13.5% of the total population. 

People who face severe food insecurity commonly run out of food or go a day or more without eating, while those facing moderate food insecurity often reduce their food quality or quantity and live with uncertainty about their ability to access meals. 

In contrast to global developments, only a small proportion of Brazilians could afford a healthy diet, from a peak of 29.8% in 2021 to 23.7% in 2024. At the same time, the 2025 SOFI report cautions that food prices increased globally during 2024. 

Recine credits Brazil’s achievement to the coordination between these policies and action through a national food and nutritional security system.“Brazil didn’t beat hunger by chance — this took concerted political action,” says Recine. “We did it by putting people, family farmers, Indigenous and traditional communities, and access to good local food at the center — and by including those most affected. In just two years, millions of children are no longer going to bed without the healthy food they need to grow.” 

As Brazil will host the 30th Conference of the Parties to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (COP30), Recine says the country’s achievements convey that tackling hunger, inequality, and climate change go hand in hand. 

“But the fight isn’t over. Food prices are rising and tariff threats are looming, so we must stay the course, because the cost of inaction is measured in lives.”

Brazil Sem Fome

In addition to removing Brazil from the FAO Hunger Map, Brazil’s hunger program aims to reduce food and nutrition insecurity — specifically severe insecurity — and cut poverty rates year-on-year. The plan is backed by over 30 policies across the country’s ministries, focusing Brazil’s national commitment on coordinated public action and civil society engagement.

The program focuses on “people-first policies” to guarantee food access. IPES-Food underscores the “unprecedented cross-government coordination” to align food, health, education, climate, and poverty eradication goals across all ministries, levels of government, and civil society. 

Recine highlights several of the most valuable policies: 

• Resumption of income transfers to families in situations of greater vulnerability.
• Economic recovery, employment, and raising the minimum wage.
• Strengthening family farming to increase the supply of and access to healthy food.
• Strengthening public purchases from family farming for different programmes (e.g., school meals).

Above all, Recine credits the coordination between these policies through a national food and nutritional security system that links these actions. 

“The cross-sectoral governance model, involving different government sectors and civil society at all levels, from federal to local, has been the most important differentiator — because good programs are not enough. They need to be articulated and coordinated, with the permanent participation and monitoring of civil society, which mainly represents the most vulnerable groups.” 

In addition, the country granted every Brazilian the human right to adequate food under national law, and the program includes targeted support for Black and Indigenous peoples’ access to public food purchases. 

Since 2020–22, Brazil has lifted 40 million people out of moderate to severe food insecurity, reaching 13.5% of the country’s total population in 2022–24.Brazil’s universal school feeding program provides all elementary and secondary school students with nutritious meals, with expanded outreach to hospitals, military institutions, and universities. The Feeding Cities program expands local markets, public restaurants, and food banks to improve access in urban areas.

The program supports farmers in tackling climate change by supporting their transition to organic and agroecological production. It also includes public procurement from family farmers, for example, to supply schools and community kitchens. 

State of nutrition

The 2025 SOFI report reveals that an estimated 8.2% of the global population may have faced hunger in 2024, a decrease from recent years — 8.5% in 2023 and 8.7% in 2022. 

“The progress is driven by notable improvement in Southeastern Asia, Southern Asia, and South America in contrast to the continuing rise in hunger in most subregions of Africa and in Western Asia,” reveals the report. 

The report notes moderate or severe food insecurity has declined gradually since 2021, reaching 28% of the global population in 2024, though rates are rising in Africa. 

Despite the growing average costs of a healthy diet due to increased food prices, the report reveals that the number of people unable to afford a nutritious diet has decreased from 2.76 billion in 2019 to 2.6 billion in 2024. 

The report points to other widening global gaps, as fewer people in Africa, low-income countries, and lower- to middle-income countries (excluding India) could afford a healthy diet in 2024 than five years previously. 

“Low-income countries and communities bear the brunt of hunger, food insecurity, and malnutrition and are disproportionately affected by food price inflation,” states the report. 

Echoing Brazil’s food program, the report calls for global coordination and targeted, evidence-based, and country-led actions that are inclusive, context-specific, and aligned with the needs and priorities of each country. 

The report is an annual flagship report jointly prepared by FAO, the International Fund for Agricultural Development, UNICEF, the World Food Programme, and the WHO.