Brasília, May 12, 2004 (Agência Brasil) - President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva said today that social policy should be an accelerator of sustainable development in Brazil. For this to occur, according to the President, it is necessary to enlarge the family farming and agrarian reform programs, expand the community restaurants, multiply the food banks, and strengthen the school lunch program.

During the induction of the members of the National Food and Nutritional Security Council (Consea), in the Planalto Palace, the President emphasized that the food security policy is also a powerful lever to expand the domestic mass market. According to Lula, the challenge is to make social policy work as an accelerator of sustainable development in the country. "This is the essence of the national policy we are and will be erecting," he affirmed.

The difficulty in combatting hunger in Brazil, according to the President, is not just the lack of resources. The main problem, Lula affirmed, is the absence of reliable registers in the country. The President recalled that, despite all the criticisms the Zero Hunger program has received in Brazil, it has been given high ratings in public opinion polls and has become a reference point for debates throughout the world.

The Family Grant program, which unified all of the government's income transfer programs, currently benefits 3.9 million families, which receive an average of US$ 23.19 (R$ 72.50) per month. The goal is to attain 4.5 million families by the end of July.

According to Lula, the only way hunger will be fought definitively around the world is to transform it into a political problem. "For the time being hunger is a social problem. The starving are quiet; the starving are waiting. The problem will only be treated by leaders all over the world on the scale it demands, when the starving resolve to shout together that they are hungry," he observed.

Translator: David Silberstein