Speaker: M. Jahi Chappell, Senior Research Fellow at the Centre for Agroecology, Water and Resilience (CAWR) at Coventry University

Abstract: This presentation will recount the story of Belo Horizonte, Brazil, a “test bed” for some of the slew of progressive policies enacted in Brazil after the end of its dictatorship, and continuing even in Brazil’s current regressive political climate. Founded in 1993, Belo’s Secretariat of Food Security has overseen dramatic decreases in diabetes and infant malnutrition and mortality, and increases in fruit and vegetable consumption. It runs over 20 programs directly touching a third of Belo Horizonte’s 2.5 million citizens, and partners with small, local family farmers to allow them to sell directly to consumers in the city, in an attempt to improve local rural livelihoods, slow rural-urban migration, and support an alternative, sustainable local food chain. How did this holistic approach to food security come to be, and how has it survived and changed since 1993? The presentation will conclude by reviewing the confluence of movement and political party activities that led to innovative social programs across Brazil. Final remarks will cover tentative lessons on how food systems might continue to be transformed for the better, in Belo Horizonte and beyond.

Presented by the Department of Development Sociology Seminar Series