The Alimenta Cidades (Feeding Cities) Strategy in Brazil: catalysing policy alignment from the municipal level

This case study has been produced in partnership with the Ministry of Social Development and Assistance, Family and Fight against Hunger of Brazil. It is part of a larger piece of work that explores country case studies of transformations in agrifood systems, to be released in 2025 under the framework of the One Planet Network Sustainable Food Systems Programme, with financial assistance from the Federal Office for Agriculture, Switzerland. Insights from Brazil's journey were shared by Hosana Alves do Nascimento, Andreia Amorim Dias, Elisa Carvalho Lauer, Ademir Cazella, Gustavo Chianca, Patricia Gentil, Catia Grisa, João Intini, Gustavo Porpino, Rud Rafael, Lilian Rahal, Elisabetta Recine, and Juliana Tângari (listed alphabetically). The case study was written by Elena Ambühl and reviewed by Gisele Bortolini, Bruna Pitasi, Janine Coutinho, José Valls Bedeau and Jane Feeney. Appreciation is due to Marion Girard Cisneros and Tommaso Mattei for the web editing and layout.

From Zero Hunger to Brazil Without Hunger: The evolution of Brazil's food security and nutrition policies ⮥

© FAO/Danielle Pereira. Farmer participating in the project "Reversing Desertification in Vulnerable Areas of Brazil through Sustainable Agroforestry and Biodiversity Conservation (REDESER)", a partnership between FAO Brazil and the Brazilian Ministry of the Environment and Climate Change (MMA).

Over the past three decades, Brazil has emerged as a global leader in the fight against hunger and poverty. A defining feature of Brazil’s trajectory has been the active involvement of civil society and social movements in shaping both the discourse and the institutional frameworks underpinning food and nutrition policies. Rather than treating hunger as an isolated issue, Brazil’s model reframes food as a human right – recognizing its social, environmental, cultural and civic dimensions alongside nutrition. Brazil’s commitment is anchored in constitutional and international legal frameworks.

By the 2000s, this vision had influenced policy frameworks across Latin America, promoting a multidimensional approach that connects food access with sustainability, citizenship and justice. In Brazil, this shift was legally consolidated through the Organic Law on Food and Nutritional Security which established the National Food and Nutrition Security System (SISAN, in Portuguese) to guarantee the Right to Adequate Food.

The political breakthrough came in 2003, with the launch of the landmark Fome Zero (Zero Hunger) strategy. Aimed at eradicating hunger and extreme poverty, this initiative succeeded in removing Brazil from FAO’s “hunger map” by 2014. It combined conditional cash transfer programs such as Bolsa Família with expanded school meals through the Brazilian National School Feeding Program, which provides daily meals to approximately 40 million children and adolescents – bridging long-standing divides between economic and social policy agendas.

A shift in political leadership between 2019 and 2022 with changes to public policy priorities related to food security, rural development, and family farming, impacted key food security and nutrition (FSN) programmes. By 2017, over 5.2 million Brazilians were undernourished. The COVID-19 pandemic further deepened these vulnerabilities. By the end of 2020, 19 million people (9 percent of the population) faced severe food insecurity, while 43.4 million (20.5 percent) experienced moderate to severe food insecurity.

In the wake of the January 2023 change in government, Brazil resumed a new phase in its FSN agenda under the overarching strategy Brasil Sem Fome (Brazil Without Hunger) and National Food and Nutrition Security Plan (PLANSAN 2025–2027), the principal instrument of SISAN. The new PLANSAN reflects a strategic shift towards integrated, intersectoral policymaking. This renewed policy framework is aligned with Brazil’s broader climate agenda, notably Plano Clima (National Climate Change Plan), which places agrifood systems at the centre of ecological resilience and climate action.

The Alimenta Cidades strategy is the outcome of this historic process and the result of growing institutionalization of social participation in decision-making spaces. It also represents the guiding principle of current governance innovations that seek to build systems that are participatory, context-specific and capable of sustaining long-term, transformative change. 

Alimenta Cidades: a strategic catalyst of National Food Security and Nutrition policies ⮥

© Cajui Agency for WWF. Launched in May 2021, the Sol Nascente kitchen now distributes 100 to 120 free lunches daily, Monday to Friday.

Launched in 2023 and coordinated by the National Secretariat for Food and Nutritional Security (SESAN/MDS), the Alimenta Cidades (Feeding Cities) strategy was developed to respond to the growing challenge of urban food insecurity in Brazil. It aims to expand the production, access and consumption of adequate and healthy food in Brazilian cities, with a particular focus on urban peripheral areas and vulnerable and at-risk populations. The strategy seeks to integrate policies and actions that strengthen local food systems, contribute to overcoming food and nutrition insecurity, and promote fairer, healthier, and more sustainable food environments.

Among its specific goals, the strategy seeks to increase access to safe and healthy diets, reduce social and nutritional inequalities, strengthen governance, and promote integration between urban and rural areas. It also aims to support local, innovative and participatory initiatives focused on food sovereignty, climate change mitigation and adaptation, and cooperation among cities.

Among the main federal government offerings are programmes such as the Food Acquisition Programme, the Urban Agriculture Programme, and Solidarity Kitchens; improving access to healthy food in peripheral areas; policies to promote healthy eating in schools; promoting healthy food environments, and modernizing food banks. The strategy also includes support for food loss and waste reduction, the development of digital tools to connect producers and consumers, and the implementation of cross-sectoral policies aimed at assisting families experiencing food insecurity within the fields of social assistance, health, and food security and nutrition.

Currently, over 60 municipalities – representing more than 60 million people – are participating in Alimenta Cidades. By joining the strategy, municipalities are prioritized in federal programs and gain concrete support to innovate, plan and transform their urban food systems in an integrated, inclusive and sustainable way.

“

By the end of 2023, around eight million people in Brazil were still experiencing severe food insecurity – and about seven million of them lived in large urban areas, especially in peripheral neighbourhoods and favelas. Just a year earlier, the crisis was even more alarming: 33 million Brazilians were food insecure, including nearly 27 million in cities. This reality challenged us, together with states and municipalities, to think of a new strategy to respond effectively.

”

– Patricia Gentil, Director of the Department for the Promotion of Adequate and Healthy Eating at MDS

© Luminar for FAO

With 85 percent of Brazil’s population now living in urban areas, challenges related to urbanization – including housing, health and access to healthy food – have become central to the fight against hunger and all forms of malnutrition. Urban food insecurity is compounded by deep spatial inequalities. According to a study conducted in 91 municipalities representing 77 million people, more than 25 million people are living in “food deserts” and an additional 15 million in “food swamps” – urban areas where ultra-processed foods dominate the local food environment.

The affordability of healthy diets remains a significant barrier. In 2022, a healthy diet in Brazil cost 4.25 times more than a diet based on starchy staples only, highlighting a stark gap between dietary needs and economic accessibility, particularly for low-income populations. Tackling this “double burden” of malnutrition – where undernutrition and obesity coexist – requires targeted, context-specific interventions that address both food availability and access.

The strategy brings systems thinking into practice by linking local governments with national objectives and anchoring FSN interventions in the specific realities of each territory. It addresses the structural inequalities that affect nearly half the population and prioritizes action where it is most needed.

“

Alimenta Cidades stands out as one of the most inspiring public policies implemented by the Brazilian government in recent years, precisely because it embraces and operationalizes the complexity of food systems. Many people talk about food systems, and everyone agrees that they are complex. But how do we translate the complexity of food systems at the local level?

”

– João Intini, Food Systems Policy Officer at the FAO Regional Office for Latin America and the Caribbean

©FAO/Max Valencia

Implementation is carried out in stages and is built in partnership with municipalities. The first stage involves conducting a participatory situational diagnosis, carried out with technical support from the federal government, to identify the main challenges and local potential within the urban food system. Based on this diagnosis, an implementation route is developed, outlining a set of strategic actions to be carried out during the first cycle of the strategy taking place from 2024 to 2026, aligned with local priorities and the thematic axes of the policy.

Throughout the process, municipalities receive ongoing technical support, both virtually and in person, as well as training for local teams, methodological tools, reference materials, and opportunities for horizontal cooperation through the Urban Healthy Food Network (RUAS). This network promotes the exchange of experiences among cities, fostering the dissemination of best practices and innovative solutions and facilitating peer learning, helping local governments to structure, implement, monitor and evaluate their FSN actions.

In addition to implementing federal actions, cities are encouraged to design creative and integrated solutions that respond to the specific needs of their territories – such as urban agriculture projects, community kitchens, food distribution networks, food banks and food and nutrition education programs. These initiatives may be incorporated into the implementation route and receive institutional support and, when possible, federal funding.

From designing solutions to weaving systems ⮥

Brazil’s approach to food and nutrition governance is best understood not through isolated programmes or technical fixes, but through a dynamic, collaborative practice of building public policy through strong, structured relationships among policymakers, civil servants, academics, think tanks and, crucially, civil society, as established in the normative acts that created SISAN. Stakeholders across sectors share a clear understanding of the complexity of food systems, the political dimensions of food systems transformation and the need for integrated, systemic responses.

At the core of this model is the belief that solutions cannot be pre-packaged or imposed from above. Instead, the emphasis is placed on constructing governance structures that are inclusive, intersectoral and multilevel – designed not just for coherence, but for resilience and long-term structural change. These structures allow public policies to be articulated and scaled in ways that remain grounded in the lived realities and priorities of the Brazilian population.

“

The scale of our challenges means we won’t get quick, clean solutions. We need consistency, coherence, resistance and resilience. And we must open up to difference – to listen to traditional communities, Indigenous Peoples and urban groups, each of whom expresses their needs and solutions in their own way.

”

– Elisabetta Recine, Nutritionist, Professor at the University of Brasília and President of CONSEA

© Luminar for FAO

This capacity to design inclusive and adaptive public policies provides the foundation for innovative strategies such as Alimenta Cidades, which reflects Brazil’s broader commitment to building governance systems that are participatory, place-based, and capable of enabling long-term, structural transformation.

A core element of Brazil’s FSN approach is the integration of food and nutrition policies within the broader social protection system. This institutional alignment enables more comprehensive responses to poverty, all forms of malnutrition, and inequality.

“

The Ministry of Social Development coordinates a broad social protection agenda which contains data on over 40 million families – more than 90 million people. Nearly the entire vulnerable population is in this system. This provides us with a strong and strategic foundation for developing food security programs to increase access to adequate food for the Brazilian population, especially the most vulnerable. These actions have contributed to the reduction in hunger already observed in Brazil by the end of 2023.

”

– Lilian Rahal, National Secretary for Food and Nutrition Security, MDS

© Luminar for FAO

Institutionalizing alignment and coordination ⮥

Alimenta Cidades builds on SISAN, a governance model rooted in intersectoral coordination, broad social participation, and a decentralized structure bridging federal, state and municipal levels.

The Interministerial Chamber of Food and Nutritional Security (CAISAN) plays a central role in promoting policy coherence across all levels of government. Through its federal, state and municipal branches (CAISAN Estadual and CAISAN Municipal), CAISAN facilitates both top-down alignment of national goals and bottom-up feedback from local actors. This multilevel structure allows policies to be adapted to territorial contexts, while preserving strategic consistency across scales.

CAISAN also leads on monitoring and evaluation, tracking indicators related to food production, access, income, health and education. Housed within MDS, the federal CAISAN includes representatives from more than 20 ministries covering agriculture, the environment, health, education, women, cities and Indigenous Peoples, among other areas.

Beyond vertical alignment, CAISAN ensures horizontal integration. Each ministry represented must negotiate targets, timelines and resources collectively. The same logic applies within state and municipal CAISANs – embedding vertical and horizontal coherence into Brazil’s food governance architecture. At the municipal level, CAISAN functions as the key governance platform for coordinating and implementing the Alimenta Cidades strategy, ensuring alignment with local priorities and promoting intersectoral collaboration.

“

After all, I, sitting here in a suit and tie in Brasília, won’t be the one to solve the problems of rural Amazonas, Acre or Rio Grande do Norte, where my family is from. We need to engage with communities, understand their local realities and co-create with them solutions based on grassroots innovations.

”

– Gustavo Porpino, Researcher at Embrapa

© Luminar for FAO

The National Council for Food and Nutrition Security (CONSEA) is an advisory council and ensures systemic, intersectoral coordination across all levels of government – federal, state, and municipal – while embedding social participation into the design, execution and monitoring of food and nutrition policies. Representing a cornerstone of Brazil’s inclusive policymaking, federal, state and municipal CONSEAs are composed of two-thirds civil society representatives and one-third government officials. This ensures that food and nutrition policies are shaped by those most directly affected by it, contributing to more adaptive, integrated and systemic approaches.

In the context of Alimenta Cidades, CONSEAs play a central role in ensuring social oversight, monitoring and evaluation. They are actively involved in all stages of the strategy’s implementation – contributing with vital community-based knowledge, assessing local needs and constraints, and supporting the identification of implementation partners such as urban agriculture initiatives. This continuous engagement ensures that the strategy remains responsive to local realities and rooted in participatory governance.

Operationalizing coherence through local action ⮥

A key factor behind the success of Alimenta Cidades is its ability to align political leadership and administrative capacity across different levels of government. The strategy demonstrates how complex food systems can be translated into actionable policy at the municipal level, through intergovernmental collaboration and sustained technical support.

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Political will is essential – but we also need administrative and financial will to make implementation possible.

”

– Juliana Tângari, Coordinator, Comida do Amanhã (Food of Tomorrow), Urban Laboratory of Public Food Policies

© Luminar for FAO

As Alimenta Cidades expands from its initial 60 municipalities to 91, with an increasing focus on small and medium-sized cities and aiming to reach all cities of over 300 000 inhabitants, capacity-building and knowledge exchange have become central.

The Alimenta Cidades strategy encourages municipalities to act as coordinators of a broad array of national programmes. This territorialized integration reduces fragmentation, aligns policy objectives and allows municipalities to build coherent, context-sensitive food systems. Horizontal coordination is institutionalized through specific programs that involve multiple ministries working collaboratively.

For example, the National Programme for Urban and Peri-Urban Agriculture plays a critical role in the implementation of the Alimenta Cidades strategy. The programme supports municipalities and civil society to develop their urban agriculture agendas and provides technical assistance, guidance on regulatory frameworks and support to create and sustain community gardens.

© Luminar for FAO. Hosana Alves do Nascimiento, Coordinator of the Instituto Horta Girassol, the biggest community garden in Sao Sebastião, Brasilia.

“

The Ministry supports organizations working on urban agriculture with the support of the local governments of these 60 participating municipalities. The programme is currently implemented through a partnership between four ministries: the Ministry of Social Development, the Ministry of Agrarian Development, the Ministry of the Environment, and the Ministry of Labour and Employment. This interministerial coordination reflects the cross-cutting nature of urban agriculture.

”

– Elisa Lauer, General Coordination of the Urban and Peri-Urban Agriculture Program, MDS

© Luminar for FAO

This integrated approach recognizes that urban agriculture is not only about food production, but also contributes to job creation, income generation, community building, environmental conservation, public health promotion, and the resilience of urban communities.

Another example is the Cozinhas Solidárias (Solidarity Kitchens) Programme, one of the most innovative and socially transformative elements of the Alimenta Cidades strategy. The programme aims to provide free, high-quality meals to the population, with priority given to people facing social vulnerability, including people experiencing homelessness and food insecurity and malnutrition.

In 2023, solidarity kitchens were formally integrated into federal policies through federal law. By institutionalizing social technologies originally developed by grassroots organizations, the government acknowledged the effectiveness and the social innovation capacity of organized civil society in crisis response and community care.

Today, more than 2 000 solidarity kitchens are active throughout the country, forming a vast network of community support. This demonstrates the pivotal role these kitchens can play as permanent public policy instruments – not just emergency responses. Their reach into informal and vulnerable urban territories makes them key actors in territorialized food security strategies and frontline infrastructure for nutrition.

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These kitchens aren’t just food distribution points – they are spaces for community organizing, environmental risk prevention and collective empowerment.

”

– Rud Rafael, National Coordinator of the Homeless Workers’ Movement

© FAO/Elena Ambühl

By sourcing food from family farmers, often operating in nearby rural or peri-urban areas, and prioritizing healthy diets, the solidarity kitchens are positioned as nodes of circular, inclusive and sustainable food economies. They offer not only food but also foster dignity, agency and a sense of community ownership, especially for women, Afro-descendant communities and low-income residents who are often coordinators of these initiatives.

© Cajui Agency for WWF (left) and © FAO/Elena Ambühl (right). Farmers from the Small Farmers Movement (Movimento dos Pequenos Agricultores) deliver weekly produce to the solidarity kitchen run by the Homeless Workers' Movement, which operates 58 kitchens across Brazil.

This model illustrates how horizontal policy coherence – through interministerial action and the bridging of civil society and government – can transform localized social innovation into national food policy. The success of the Solidarity Kitchens Programme reinforces the importance of designing public procurement and social programs that are flexible, participatory and embedded in local realities.

Climate and food: a necessary policy integration for sustainable transformation ⮥

“

In the third Lula government, climate change began to emerge as a cross-cutting theme in social policies – raising questions like: how can we reduce emissions in school meals? How do we support local and biodiversity-friendly farming?

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– Gustavo Chianca, Assistant Representative at FAO Brazil

© FAO

Climate change has become a structuring force in Brazil’s food security and nutrition agenda. As the country prepares to host COP30 in Belém, it faces the urgent task of aligning food, social and environmental policies to address accelerating climate risks. The devastating floods in Rio Grande do Sul in May 2024 – one of the worst disasters in the country’s history – served as a stark reminder of the vulnerability of communities and food systems, underscoring the need for climate-resilient, inclusive public policies. Consequently, the Alimenta Cidades Strategy will be deployed in municipalities affected by the climate disaster, aiming to build more resilient cities and food systems in the face of climate change.

© FAO/Danielle Pereira. Farmers participating in the REDESER project.

To tackle the effects of extreme climate events, the federal government reactivated Brazil’s Interministerial Committee on Climate Change and launched Plano Clima 2024–2035, establishing an intersectoral and participatory climate governance framework. Developed through public consultations, technical workshops and national caravans, the plan includes 16 sectoral adaptation strategies and seven mitigation plans across key areas such as agriculture, energy, cities and forests. Among the adaptation plans, a specific plan on food and nutrition security was developed. Agriculture – now integrated with targets for deforestation and land degradation – is coordinated by three ministries (Ministry of Agriculture and Livestock, Ministry of Agrarian Development and Family Farming, and Ministry of Fisheries and Aquaculture) and includes 83 specific targets for family farming. These targets focus on agroecology, climate resilience and access to green credit lines. Plano Clima aligns with Brazil’s updated National Determined Contribution (NDC) targets, including a 59–67 percent reduction in net emissions by 2035, zero illegal deforestation by 2028, and restoration of 12 million hectares of native vegetation by 2030.

To support its operationalization, MDS launched a public consultation in May 2025 on the Reference Framework for Food Systems and Climate for Public Policies. This instrument was built through scientific reviews, multi-stakeholder dialogue and technical workshops, and provides a shared foundation for integrating climate and food agendas across public policy.

The Framework emphasizes systemic, intersectoral, and rights-based approaches, operationalized through SISAN and territorial governance structures. It proposes concrete policy “pathways” to ensure alignment of climate action and food systems transformation, including support to agroecological transition, climate-adaptive production, democratic governance and conflict-of-interest safeguards. Crucially, it acknowledges the key role of civil society – particularly Indigenous Peoples, traditional communities and urban populations – not just as beneficiaries, but as active agents of transformation.

Brazil is building an integrated policy architecture that centres equity, sustainability and long-term resilience in food systems. This alignment ensures that public finance, territorial planning and institutional coordination are all moving toward those same strategic objectives.

Conclusion ⮥

Brazil’s experience demonstrates that when public policies addressing food systems transformation are built on democratic participation and strong political commitment, and accompanied by adequate public financing, they can become powerful tools for structural transformation. The country’s institutional architecture for food security and nutrition is not accidental – it is the legacy of decades of collective action aimed at embedding equity, sustainability and rights-based approaches into public food policy.

Scalable policies such as Alimenta Cidades exemplify this approach – aligning food and nutrition objectives with climate action, biodiversity conservation and social equity. As the case highlights, this is enabled through sustained interministerial coordination, robust capacity and institutional infrastructure at all levels (federal, state and municipal), genuine multilevel collaboration, the dynamic articulation of programmes within a portfolio approach, coordinated resource allocation, and leveraging the leading role of civil society throughout the policy process.

Its expansion to more municipalities and a growing focus on territorial governance signal a commitment to integrated, context-specific responses that leave no one behind. To ensure Alimenta Cidades delivers on its transformative potential, consolidating a stable, protected budget and ensuring sustained political and social support will be critical.

The case of Brazil shows that well-aligned food policies can become a powerful driver of transformation across scales, sectors, territories and generations.

Acknowledgements (in alphabetical order)

• Hosana Alves do Nascimiento, Coordinator of Instituto Horta Girassol, the biggest community garden in Brasília
• Andreia Amorim Dias, Project Coordinator, National Secretariat for Social Dialogue and Coordination of Public Policies, General Secretariat of the Presidency of the Republic of Brazil
• Elisa Carvalho Lauer, General Coordination of the Urban and Peri-Urban Agriculture Program, Ministry of Social Development and Assistance, Family and Fight against Hunger
• Ademir Cazella, Professor of Rural Development at the Federal University of Santa Catarina and Advisor for Territorial Policy at the Secretariat for Land Governance, Territorial and Socio-Environmental Development, Ministry of Agrarian Development and Family Farming
• Gustavo Chianca, Assistant FAO Representative in Brazil
• Patricia Gentil, Director, Department for the Promotion of Adequate and Healthy Eating, Ministry of Social Development and Assistance, Family and Fight against Hunger
• Catia Grisa, Associate Professor, Graduate Center of Rural Development, Federal University of Rio Grande do Sul
• Joao Intini, Food Systems Policy Officer, FAO Regional Office for Latin America and the Caribbean
• Gustavo Porpino, Researcher at the Brazilian Agricultural Research Corporation (Embrapa)
• Rud Rafael, National Coordinator, Homeless Workers’ Movement
• Lilian Rahal, Secretary of Food and Nutrition Security, Ministry of Development and Social Assistance, Family, and the Fight Against Hunger
• Elisabetta Recine, Nutritionist, Professor at the University of Brasilia, and President of the National Council for Food and Nutrition Security
• Juliana Tângari, Coordinator, Comida do Amanhã (Food of Tomorrow), Urban Laboratory of Public Food Policies

Read more

• FAO Brazil
• One Planet Network Sustainable Food Systems Programme's Working Group to support the implementation of National Pathways

For further information, contact:

• José Valls Bedeau, Policy Officer, Agrifood Systems and Food Safety Division (ESF), FAO
• Elena Ambühl, Junior Professional Officer, Agrifood Systems and Food Safety Division (ESF), FAO