Brazil secures livelihoods and beats poverty by buying food from family farmers

Brazil’s Programa de Aquisição de Alimentos (PAA) commits the government to sourcing food from local smallholders and farmers, guaranteeing a liveable price for their food that would be impossible to obtain on the open market. The program, which is frequently managed through cooperatives that organise sales from many farms to the government, is one of the largest institutional procurement programs in the world. Studies suggest that farmers receive 30-100% more from sales to the government than other buyers, and the program has secured incomes for more than 200,000 families.