As of April 2021, 351,000 Brazilians have died because of Covid-19. Brazil’s covid crisis is only getting worse. With packed hospitals and climbing cases, there’s another problem unfolding, food shortage. There are a estimated 19 million who have gone hungry during the pandemic. There are 117 million people in Brazil and half of the population lives with food insecurity. Experts are pointing to high unemployment, cuts and reductions to social programmes and sharp price increases on basic food staples as some of the reasons behind the problem. Brazil was taken off of the United Nations world hunger map in 2014 after years of concerted effort to reduce hunger through successful social programs and public policies. Brazil is a major food exporter and Sao Paulo is South America’s wealthiest city. A person quoted, “A poor person in the city can go out in the street and ask for food, a poor rural person can’t,” said Maluf at the PENSSAN NETWORK. Basic food prices have rocketed during the pandemic, which has had a disproportionate effect on poorer citizens. According to the Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistic, in one year, the price of a kilogramme of rice shot up nearly 70 percent. The price of bottles of cooking gas commonly used in Brazil rose by 20 percent in the past year
The recent reports of starvation within Brazil are alarming to me. A country who is pretty well known and the biggest country in South America is having difficulty feeding almost 1/6 of their population is shocking. With little to no publicity about these recent struggles within this large south american country is also shocking from an American perspective because it just shows how the United States focuses on itself rather than supporting countries who need help the most. This will affect the rest of the regions around because trading will be affected, taxes will rise, the price of other products will rise, and most violence will erupt. For lasting impacts on the region, it will take a pretty long time for this country to recover from the pandemic. The steps they’ve taken to slow down the pandemic have been pretty scarce, the vaccines rolling out are close to none, and the country is going into a recession.
From a levels of analysis perspective, two individuals who were listed in the article, Ana Maria Nogueira and her husband Eraldo add one bacon flavoured seasoning cube to the pot of rice everyday. Ana stated, “This year, we’re going hungry,”. On a state level, Brazil is suffering from 1/6 of their country going hungry. On a regional level, they are not capable of exporting the same resources since the country is shut down and not many people have jobs. They also will need a lot of resources to get their country back up and running. On a global scale, world organizations like the World Health Organization, United Nations, and the Red Cross will need to support Brazil fiscally and will basic needs. The global pandemic has impacted each country differently, some countries worse than others. Brazil definitely got hit hard by the pandemic and will need extra support to ensure they get back up onto their feet.