Public resources on the Brazilian Food and Nutrition Security agenda from 2000 to 2022

To analyze the time trend of federal public resources invested in the Brazilian Food and Nutrition Security agenda from 2000-2022.

A time series study was carried out with data collected from a publicly accessible system on the Federal Government's planning and budget. We analyzed the budget actions and their resources indicated by the Budget Allocation and the Settled Amount. The actions were categorized into themes of the Food Nutrition Security agenda, analyzed using the Prais-Winsten regression, together with the Cochrane-Orcutt method. The values were adjusted by the Broad Consumer Price Index for January 2023.

Investment in the area of Food and Nutrition Security has shown an upward trend over two decades of federal funding, although it has shown fluctuations in certain years. The Budgetary Allocation showed an annual variation of 10.1%, and the Settled Amount obtained 10.8%. However, there is an imbalance in federal funding between strategic areas, with an upward trend in health (37.4%), food sovereignty (23.7%), and access to food (12.3%); and a downward trend in investment in some areas, such as agrarian development (-7.0%). The allocation of resources was concentrated on welfare actions to guarantee access to food, averaging 73.4% of the total resources spent.

The results show that public investment in Brazil's Food and Nutrition Security agenda has been on the rise, although there have been fluctuations in certain years and a concentration of resources in specific areas. Despite having two thirds of the budget aimed exclusively at actions toward access to food, recent data shows that hunger still plagues the Brazilian reality. This reinforces the need for continuous and more equitable investment between areas, as a way of strengthening structuring public policies that permanently guarantee Food and Nutrition Security for the Brazilian population.