A-Infos (en) Brazil, UAF: Hunger is an Invention of Capitalism: From the Lie of Scarcity to the Fight for Food Sovereignty (ca, de, fr, it, pt, tr)[machine translation]

We reproduce the text from the conference held on October 3, 2025: ---- 
Hunger is systematically presented as a technical problem, the result of 
a supposed lack of food, or as a natural tragedy stemming from droughts 
and wars. This is the great lie we are told. In reality, hunger is not a 
flaw in the capitalist system; it is one of its most cruel and brutal 
functions, the ultimate expression of a logic that places profit above 
life. ---- The most compelling proof of this perversity is in Brazil, 
one of the world's largest food producers. In the 2022/2023 harvest, the 
country produced more than 300 million tons of grain. If this production 
were simply divided by the population, each Brazilian would be entitled 
to more than 4 kg of food per day. Yet, amid this obscene abundance, 33 
million people go hungry and 70 million live in food insecurity. How is 
this possible? The answer is simple and straightforward: the system 
doesn't produce to feed; it produces to profit.

This is the perverse logic of capitalism: food is not a right, it's a 
commodity. Its primary value lies not in nourishing people, but in 
generating capital accumulation. It is more profitable for a large 
corporation to transform corn into ethanol or feed for confined cattle 
than to guarantee cheap food for the population. Deliberate 
waste-throwing away milk or letting fruit rot-is a market strategy to 
keep prices high. Commanding this system are approximately 50 global 
corporations, such as Cargill, Bayer, and Nestlé, which control food 
production, distribution, and prices. Food is in the hands of those who 
seek profit, not nourishment.

In Brazil, the most visible face of this hunger-generating machine is 
agribusiness. It doesn't produce food; it produces commodities for 
export. While it occupies 75% of arable land, family farming, which uses 
only 23% of the area, puts real food on Brazilians' tables, responsible 
for 70% of beans, 58% of milk, and 38% of coffee. Even so, agribusiness 
receives the overwhelming majority of government subsidies and credits. 
The system, therefore, finances those who export profits, not those who 
feed the people. And it does so through the expulsion of traditional 
communities, the poisoning of the land with pesticides, and the 
destruction of biomes, consolidating itself as a project of death.

The State, far from being a neutral mediator, acts as the manager of 
this capital. The dismantling of public policies is a political choice. 
Brazil was removed from the UN Hunger Map in 2014 thanks to robust 
policies supporting family farming and income distribution. With the 
subsequent administration, these policies were dismantled, and the 
country returned to the Hunger Map in 2022. This was not an accident, 
but the direct consequence of a state that serves capital and gambles 
with people's lives according to the interests of the ruling classes. 
Successful programs like the PAA (Food Acquisition Program) and the 
PNAE, which directs 30% of school meals to family farming, show that 
solutions exist, but they are always the first targets when capital 
demands austerity.

In this scenario, denunciation is not enough. Alternatives must be built 
here and now, without relying on the state or corporations. Direct 
Action materializes in the land occupations of the MST and other 
movements, which are not "invasions," but the recovery of stolen land 
for a social purpose: producing real food, without poison, in a 
cooperative manner. Mutual Support is realized in family farming 
cooperatives, street markets, community gardens, and short-circuit 
production and consumption. A practical example is ASTRAF in the Federal 
District, which produces 40 tons of organic food per month and directly 
supplies public schools. This is food sovereignty in practice: the 
people controlling what they produce and what they eat.

It follows, therefore, that hunger is a political weapon. It is an 
instrument to control, discipline, and weaken the working class. A 
hungry people is easier to manipulate. The global problem has never been 
a lack of food, but rather the concentration of income, land, power, and 
profit-mechanisms of the State and Capital that create scarcity. Our 
fight is not for crumbs or "more public policies." It is for radical 
change: for free land, for native seeds, for community self-management, 
and for the end of corporate and state power. Hunger is an invention of 
capitalism. And our historic task is to invent, with our own hands, a 
new world where it is nothing more than a bad memory. For land, for 
freedom, and for the end of all domination!

Liberto Herrera.

Federalist Anarchist Union - UAF

https://uafbr.noblogs.org/post/2025/10/04/a-fome-e-uma-invencao-do-capitalismo-da-mentira-da-escassez-a-luta-pela-soberania-alimentar/
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