A look at Belo Horizonte's Food and Nutrition Security Policy in Brazil

Khushboo Balwani|December 6, 2018March 4, 2019

This article was adapted from our latest book, "Sharing Cities: Activating the Urban Commons ." Download your free pdf copy today.

Recognizing the need to make basic foods more readily available to low-income people, the "Restaurantes Populares" initiative (People's Restaurants, or Popular Restaurants in the original Portuguese) has been a key part of Belo Horizonte's pioneering Food and Nutrition Security Policy (Law No. 6.352, 15/07/1993).

Strategically distributed across various areas of the city to broaden access to the vulnerable population, there are currently four People's Restaurants and one canteen that promote equity over "fast culture." They provide cheap, healthy, safe and accessible food for all, made from fresh local produce. As reported by ICLEI in 2013, lunch costs 3 reals (about $1), half that price to the beneficiaries of the "Bolsa Família" (Family Basket) program, and free to the registered homeless — which represent about 160,000 people per year. In order to maintain the consistency of both price and quality, all the outlets are directly managed and administered by the municipality.

The program has allowed the community not only to make sure that the population is provided with fresh, nutritious food, but also to create a secure market for local farmers to sell their produce. According to Fondazione Giangiacomo Feltrinelli's report, Milan Urban Food Policy Pact, Belo's People's Restaurants serve almost 3 million meals annually.

View the full policy at Future Policy.org.

Header image by Alexandr Podvalny on Unsplash

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Khushboo Balwani | Twitter

Khushboo Balwani is a designer, strategist and activist, working on how collaborative methodologies can solve social challenges, in India and in Europe. In 2012, she wrote a thesis, entitled “Future of work in sustainable living”, as part of her MA studies in Design Strategy at Politecnico di Milano. Through this paper she intends to stimulate a strategic conversation among policy-makers, educators and researchers on the conditions that can lead to the creation of new ways of work in sustainable living. Since 2013 she has been OuiShare Brussels connector and has been engaged locally in mapping the community, researching case studies, fostering collaborations and strengthening the collaborative economy movement. She has been a speaker, workshop facilitator related to innovation in the collaborative economy and an advisor for entrepreneurs, companies and other organisations in Brussels. Currently, she is actively building the Sharitories network in Brussels that aims to rethink and redesign the city through collaborative models. On a global level, within OuiShare she has been involved in the global communications and now she leads the fellowship for OuiShare Fest 2016 communications. She is also currently involved in designing the content strategy for OuiShare that includes a topic, formats, execution plan and a business model. At OuiShare Fest 2015, she co-leaded the curation of the track “Collaborative economy and social impact - bridging the gap between solidarity and collaborative economies”. Since then this track discussion has been continued through the participation of many social innovators on an online group. Before moving to Milan, she practiced the design profession for four years in India where she mainly focused on designing the interior environments of living spaces. It is here that she explored the amazing capacities of designers in getting closer to users, understand their needs and provide customised services. It was at this moment that she decided to leverage on this skill and practice an empathetic design approach to resolve complex social challenges.

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A look at Belo Horizonte’s Food and Nutrition Security Policy in Brazil

Khushboo Balwani | Twitter

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