Beginning to End Hunger: Food and the Environment in Belo Horizonte, Brazil, and Beyond

by M. Jahi Chappell

Beginning to End Hunger presents the story of Belo Horizonte, home to 2.5 million people and the site of one of the world’s most successful food security programs. Since its Municipal Secretariat of Food and Nutritional Security was founded in 1993, Belo Horizonte has sharply reduced malnutrition, leading it to serve as an inspiration for Brazil’s renowned Zero Hunger programs. The secretariat’s work with local family farmers shows how food security, rural livelihoods, and healthy ecosystems can be supported together. In this convincing case study, M. Jahi Chappell establishes the importance of holistic approaches to food security, suggests how to design successful policies to end hunger, and lays out strategies for enacting policy change. With these tools, we can take the next steps toward achieving similar reductions in hunger and food insecurity elsewhere in the developed and developing worlds.

Learn more about Jahi and his work on his personal website.

Genres: Food, Nonfiction

272 pages, Paperback

Published January 19, 2018

Reviews

[Patrick Tsai · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book contains a bit of everything, science, policy, politics, philosophy, and a Matrix (movie) analogy. It's well worth the read if you are into issues of hunger, food justice/food sovereignty, and agroecology. Much of the book is based on Jahi's research in Brazil, and the benefits from social programs targeting family farms. I was introduced to the MSA model for projecting policy success. Also, there is a heavy reliance on Cecilia Rocha's 5 As, which is great because they are important for a holistic approach to food sovereignty issues.

Fresh take on justly approaching the US food system.