The Cost of Food for those with Food Insecurity: The Brazilian Case, Leonardo Santos de Oliveira, Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics (IBGE)

The Brazilian Household Food Insecurity Measurement Scale (EBIA) has been the official measure of household food insecurity (FI) in Brazil. EBIA was included in the National Household Budget Survey (Pesquisa de Orçamentos Familiares – POF 2017-2018) for the first time. The main objective of this paper is to identify the food costs of the vulnerable populations at risk of food insecurity (FI) in Brazil. The methodology is based on the construction of corresponding spatial price indexes obtained from POF conducted in 2017-2018, which collected data from different Brazilian geographical areas. It is worth noting that Brazil also does not evaluate official spatial price indexes which specifies differences in the cost of living among different Brazilian regions. Following the EBIA, we identify the vulnerable population as one that is at risk of moderate and severe food insecurity. The paper points to relevant disparities in price indexes between the regions of the country for this already population vulnerable to food insecurity that represents 60% of the Brazilian population. The geographic context that presented the greatest positive variation in relation to Brazil was the Metropolitan Region of São Paulo, with the price of chicken +10.5% higher. The five geographic contexts of the Northeast recorded the chicken price index higher than the average in Brazil. With prices below Brazil, the Federal District stood out. The average household expenses with products classified as fresh or minimally processed represented 55.5% of the total expenses for Brazil, while spending on ultra-processed foods, 26.3%. To the best of our knowledge this is the first time that is possible to investigate, simultaneously, data based on food expenditure and on food insecurity in the same national survey in Brazil. This study also offers a food regional price index for both, the whole population and the vulnerable one. Finally, these indexes can be used in future studies to provide information for public policies on poverty.