Food. The pandemic
has changed our habits. We stopped not exercising at a gym
and started not exercising at home. We swapped work time with booze time,
or started drinking during work, or worked while drinking,
and even came up with something even more depressing
than Zoom meetings: Zoom parties. Out-of-sync, superimposed
"Happy Birthday" songs, people wearing makeup
while dancing alone for a camera, everybody trying to speak
at the same time, that gloomy ending with people
turning off their cameras until all that's left is you
and the birthday girl and you have nothing to talk about,
because no one has, because nothing new happens
in anybody's lives, until you turn off your camera
and you're left home alone, drunk, with bad gin and tonic
in hand, because you made it, and it isn't even 10 PM yet... But the biggest change
happened to our eating habits. It's only natural. Back when we
went to the office every day, eating was something
tied to lunch time, when we'd end up at
a pay-by-weight restaurant and express our creativity
with a blank plate canvas. Some would follow
a monochromatic current, placing white chicken breast
over white rice over a white plate, while others would go
for a cubist current, deconstructing a quiche
over shredded chicken. I've always been more
of an impressionist myself - I liked fusing the pink hues
of stroganoff with the orange hues
of mashed pumpkins, sketching an unclear contour
with the yellow hues of potato sticks, creating a sunset
of lukewarm carbs. When we're home,
our menu options are reduced, but the time for lunch
spreads throughout the day. We open the fridge for whatever reason,
as if we'd find anything new there, or anything we didn't put in there.
We treat it like Twitter - we're updating the timeline. "Let's see if anyone's added something
new... no, just my stuff. Wow!" "Let me see what's trending...
Yeah, jack shit." Though soon fridges
will be able to tweet. Since everything's online now,
soon the fridge will be like you - exposing itself
and running up debts. To make matters worse, in the pandemic,
we quell our anxiety with food. And quarantine anxiety
is like Neston - there are a thousand ways
to cook it! Create your own. So, we've decided to learn
how to cook healthy foods, because that's another symptom
of anxiety: starting trends. In my house,
we've started a campaign to kill all kinds of plants,
all kinds of yeast, kombucha bacteria... We've partaken
in an invertebrate genocide of sorts. But there is one person in the
quarantine who's more interested in deaths of their own ilk:
him, President Jair Bolsonaro, who's not only a denier
in regards to sanitary matters, but also to food matters. Bolsonaro has had a bizarre relationship
with food for a long time. In Japan, he denied a feast
offered to him by the Emperor and instead ate instant noodles
he brought from Brazil. Guess he thought they
wouldn't have that there. That Nissin's ramen
was Brazilian. That it was actually "Nisso", and that
only Minas Gerais called it "Nissin". We know he brought the noodles,
but I wonder - did he bring the powder, too? Because the FAB plane used for that trip
had 85 pounds of "powder". Bolsonaro also loves posing
with classic kid's foods, such as soda and
condensed milk-filled bread. But those simple eating habits
are fabricated, and even Bolsonaro's breakfast
during his campaign was fake. Cool, huh? You there, saying
he's hampering arts? He's hiring entire movie crews
to help plan his fake breakfast! Ancine is paralyzed, but his
art direction team is very active! Getting condensed milk,
shredding bread... Lots of people are involved
in that endeavor. Vivendas da Barra is basically
a kind of Projac. The social media outlets
for the Embassy of Israel went so far as blurring
Bolsonaro's breakfast in pictures so as to erase
that day's special: crayfish. All as to not spoil the fake narrative
of the "munchies president". Yes, Bolsonaro does the famous
"poor cosplaying", also now as "cospoor". He eats crayfish
and burps out condensed milk. That's very common in Rio. Rich people in São Paulo
pretend to be richer. "Hey! Y'know, I was
at a VIP room yesterday..." Rio's 1% is the opposite.
"Wow, the bus was so crowded!" You don't take the bus!
How dare you even talk about it! Anyway, back to Bolsonaro. He "loves"
condensed milk, as we've said. In the year-end holiday alone, he spent over 2 million reais
in public money, and then said... So any fun time is
a big expense... But I'm still going! "He spent two million
on vacation!" There will be even more
vacations to spend! How much longer will
I be stuck at home? Well, "how much longer he
will be home"? I don't care. I want to know
how long he'll be in jail. I don't know
if you've noticed it, but we need to subtitle every
single Bolsonaro clip we show here. It's such a hassle.
Because his diction is so lazy, it sounds like
a different language. Like... Dude, what?
Fucking articulate, man! It's so weird, having to subtitle
your own country's president, speaking your own language. We were used to Temer! I mean, Temer required us
to TRANSLATE him. Totally different. Convert his words
to modern vernacular. The one we, those who can walk
under the sun, use. And with Dilma,
we had to decode. She required true
hermeneutics research. The "hidden dog figure" she'd
mention was actually democracy. And her "through cassava" spiel
was a homage to our native cultures. But why am I going over
Bolsonaro's eating habits? Because we have an urgent
topic to talk about. One that can't wait
until 2022's electoral period. One that no one
likes talking about. We announced that today's show
was going to be about food because it's clickbait.
People love talking about food. But it was a lie. Today's show is actually about
when one has no food. About a humanitarian emergency
going on right now in Brazil. One we like to pretend
isn't happening, but it is. And the numbers are terrifying. Today's show is about hunger. Today, 19 million Brazilians, almost 1 in every 10,
are starving. It's 12 million more
than back in 2013, and 9 million more than in 2018,
when Bolsonaro was elected. Over half of Brazilian families
experience some degree of food insecurity. And before you say,
"I suffer from that, too! I'm always insecure
when picking a meal!" No, that's not it. It's not a doubt
of "what am I going to eat?", but one of "will I have
anything to eat tomorrow?" People talk a lot about how Bolsonaro
is killing us with COVID, but we need to recognize
that he's working from many angles. He tries to kill Brazilians
in many different ways, using all the creativity
of our tropical land. Remember the Horsemen of the Apocalypse?
Famine, Pestilence, War, and Death? Bolsonaro is all four at once.
And the horses! In addition to the unemployment crisis
and the out-of-control pandemic, one of the main reasons
for this increase in hunger is the increasing price of food. It increased three times the inflation
value for the pandemic's first year, and yes, I never imagined I'd use
the expression "pandemic's first year" while I was at that first year. Now we can only hope we won't have
to use the term "first decade". Anyway... Food prices didn't have
to be that high. Brazil is one of the world's
leading agricultural powers. We feed a big chunk of the world.
Our agricultural production breaks all kinds of records.
Corn, for instance, had the greatest production
numbers of all time in 2020. 109 million tons. If every ton has 1,000
big ears of corn, that means 109 million
of thousands of corn in the "ear". And in terms of puns, I "ear-radicate".
In your face, Hortifruti! Soy has also broken records. Last year, we've produced
135 million tons, which is more than a third
of soy production worldwide. That's the greatest amount of soy
planted anywhere in the world, at any point in History, and an 8% increase
compared to last year. So much soy! "So much soy".
Sounds like an Instagram poem. "So much soy.
So we see the soil say." You may be wondering,
"Why so much soy? Why are those people
so into tofu? Are they going to St. Cecília Hospital
to make tofu dishes with tuna?" No, no. What about the corn? Is it all going to Minas Gerais
to make pamonha and curau? No. No pamonha, no tofu. As we've said here before, most of it is
exported and used to make animal feed, especially for
the pigs in China. With no public policy
to balance that out, the agricultural sector has been opting
to expand the production of such plants, to be sold in dollars, neglecting
essential food to Brazilians, such as beans and rice. For comparison's sake,
back in 2020, bean production
was only 3 million tons, while rice production
was 11 million. That's less than Brazil used
to produce 10 years ago, when it had 20 million
less inhabitants. Over these 10 years, area
devoted to rice harvests has fallen over 40%. Yes, beans and rice are being
shoved to the side of the plate. As we now, beans go on top, and rice,
on the bottom, supporting the beans. It's engineering.
Any other setup is wrong! I know that because
I have a Languages degree! When food becomes an export,
it becomes reliant on the fluctuation
of international markets, and prices rise and drop in accordance
with the value of the dollar in regards to global demand.
During a pandemic, for instance, when the rest of the world is worried
that their people won't starve, prices rise, especially
because the real was one of the world's
most devalued currencies last year. As result, foreign countries started
buying Brazilian-produced food en masse, and agribusiness sells more
to foreign nations at high prices. So, if you dress up as soy,
you may visit another country. Keep it in mind.
Especially you, Ciro Gomes. In 2022, he'll have to use
a soy bag to go to Paris. "Je suis soy!" Last year, between February and October,
rice prices increased by over 70%. Beans came close:
their price increased by 66%. The famous Brazilian set meal -
rice, beans, meat, and salad, became almost 50%
more expensive in 2020. In São Paulo, they'll soon
be calling it "piatto fatto". "It's more expensive because
this is a piatto fatto house!" While famish has spread over Brazil,
smaller food producers were forced to destroy crops
that were accumulating due to the economic crisis, and they didn't even have the money
to transport all that food for donation. Brazil, a country that already
wastes a lot of food, started doing it even more so
during the pandemic. It's a disaster, but the president seems
to think it's none of his business. Like with every
Brazilian disaster, the responsible party thinks
it's not their problem. Bolsonaro is always angered
whenever people ask him about hunger. Saying that people starve
in Brazil is a lie. People get sick.
People don't eat well. I agree there. But starve? No. You don't see
poor people in the streets down to flesh and bones, as we see in other countries. For God's sake! If you're going
to stress over details, I'm leaving! I see no skinny people here.
Brazil does have food problems, yes. It's not my fault. It's from way back.
We're working on it. Bolsonaro, lower rice prices, please.
I can't handle it anymore. You want me to do it with
the stroke of a pen? To fix prices? I can do it, but then you'll buy it
at Venezuela. That guy can't buy rice, and Bolsonaro wants him to travel
and buy groceries at Caracas. To complain about rice prices,
that guy must be doing really bad. He said, "lower rice prices, please.
I can't handle it anymore." He basically said, "I'm hungry".
And the president's solution is, "go to Cuba, then!" Which is the second worst
answer to hunger, right after "eat a man, then." Then he posed that very
Bolsonaro question - "What do you want me to do?"
Well, Bolsonaro, there are a couple
of things you can do. One solution that is widely
used throughout the world is the government buying a share
of the extra crops when they exist, then introducing those products
in the market when prices increase. Americans call
that "buffer stock", but it existed since the Bible!
Yes, Joseph, son of Jacob, kept seven bountiful years
of grains in a special storage and used them to feed the people in
the seven years of famish that followed. Instead of telling a guy
to go to Venezuela, Bolsonaro could've
read the Bible. "But Bolsonaro doesn't like reading!"
Fine, then watch the Record channel. Right now, they're airing
the soap opera "Genesis", narrating the tale
of Joseph and Jacob. Won't watch Genesis?
Then listen to the Bible, as read by Cid Moreira. Yes, Cid Moreira reading the Bible,
the grandfather of all podcasts. Find an intelligent and wise man
and put him in charge of the entire land. Let Pharaoh appoint
commissioners over the land to take a fifth of the harvest during the seven years
of abundance. This food shall be used
during the seven years of famine that will come upon Egypt, so that the country
may not be ruined by the famine. When I hear Cid
reading the Bible, I keep expecting
the Masked Magician to show up, saying, "Jacob,
master of incantations, you cockroach face..." Bolsonaro has done the opposite
of what the Bible preaches - he managed to reduce our public stock
of grains to almost zero. Take rice, for instance - in 2010,
we managed to store over 5 million tons. Now, the stock is zero. But don't worry, because our stock
of hydroxychloroquine is great! We have 18 years worth of it! And it's not just in regards
to grain stocking policies that Bolsonaro represents
a complete disruption. Ever since Getúlio Vargas,
the government has tried many things
to overcome the hunger issue, such as creating
the minimum wage. That happened even during
the military dictatorship, that created a National Institution
of Food and Nutrition to distribute food during emergencies
and improve the quality of school food. Itamar Franco's administration
created the Consea, a government body that organizes
the fight against hunger in Brazil, despite sounding
like a Fiat car. "I'll be driving
a Fiat Consea, okay?" FHC, meanwhile, created
the Solidary Community Program, ran by his wife, Ruth Cardoso,
and created the Gas Support. Then, in 2002, a presidential
candidate won the elections having "tackling hunger"
as his main banner. A candidate who, not perchance,
also grew up hungry, and who migrated due to it
from the Northeast to São Paulo as a child, before becoming
a union leader. Yes, Lula. And this was
his inaugural address. Brazil saw the wealth of plantations and
sugar cane harvests during colonial times, but didn't extinguish famine. It industrialized itself, and created a notable
and diverse productive park, but didn't extinguish famine. That cannot stand. If by the end of my term
all of Brazilians have the possibility of having breakfast,
lunch, and dinner, then I'll have fulfilled
my life's purpose. Talking's easy! He blabbed on and on
about how he'd tackle hunger, and then he did. Despite all of my criticisms over Lula,
none of which I can remember right now, but that I definitely have, you can't
say Lula didn't tackle hunger, and did so successfully. And the best part - we don't have
to subtitle what he says. In the first day of his administration,
Lula launched the "Zero Hunger" program, a set of over 30 public policies
to eradicate hunger. During his administration,
the minimum wage saw a real increase of over 70%, and over
20 million jobs were created. The government established
the "Family Grant", with resources used
mainly to feed people, and supported other
important programs, such as building cisterns on semi-arid
deserts, to fight their lack of water, promoting family farming, and salvaging
the school feeding program, which had been created by Vargas.
In very poor families, school lunches are hugely
important to feed children, and since then,
circa 43 million children started having daily meals. When we think about school lunches,
I don't know about you, but before this show, I thought
of choccy milk and creamy cake, but no, they're complete meals,
picked by nutritionists. Hence the Rio expression,
"a beating for lunch". Does it make sense? Yes - it's a full,
packed, complete beating, slaps and kicks included. And as result, in 2014,
malnutrition rates in Brazil were at 3% - practically
an eradication of hunger. Extreme poverty went down
by over 60%. Little by little, Brazil became
a world reference for fighting hunger. We would even show up
in international documentaries. Like this one,
from 11 years ago. "Zero Hunger Program". If the Workers' Party's programs
were in English, maybe Faria Lima
would be all for them. It's not "Bolsa Família",
it's "Family Purse"! And there's also the "More Doctors"
and "My House, My Life" programs. Cool stuff. And before you say
I think Lula's a saint - it's not me who's treating him
as such. It's Bolsonaro himself. There's this biblical passage...
correct me if I'm wrong, but if I'm not mistaken,
it's when Jesus broke the bread. Then he kind of
went away, right? And people went
after Jesus. Why? To get more personal benefits. Do you see the correlation with the WP
giving grants for everything? That's the human being! Yes, even when he reads the Bible,
he thinks of the WP. And most curiously, he thinks
of Lula when he sees Jesus. And he considers himself anti-Lula,
so, and it's not me saying it, he can only be the Antichrist. But Bolsonaro was right
when he said that the hunger issue didn't start
with his government, that it's from before him.
That's true. But it's a problem from the past
that practically had been solved! It was a thing from the past. "The new trend was dating naked",
as the song goes. But in 2019, Bolsonaro and Paulo Guedes
came into power with a new national project,
that also started being put into motion right at the first day of the term.
Right after he took office, Bolsonaro signed the provisional measure
that extinguished the Consea, the National Council
of Nutritional Security, dismantling the coordination
of anti-hunger policies. The duration of the
National Food Security Plan ended in 2019, and to this day
the Presidential Palace hasn't even talked about a new version
of it for the 2020-2023 window. For one to draft a new plan,
one needs to hold a conference that would take place in 2019,
but the one who holds it would be Consea, and since it was
dismantled, the conference didn't happen and we were left
with no plans to fight hunger. The Bolsonaro administration
is very liberal in that sense - it takes the idea of "minimal state"
to its extreme: total abandonment. Following the absentee father,
Bolsonaro created the absentee nation. Can't even pay for alimony. The dismantling also harmed the Ministry
of Social Anti-Hunger Development, as Bolsonaro turned it into
a Secretariat as soon as he took charge, only to discharge everyone right away,
and that Secretariat is now part of the Ministry of Citizenship,
which also cover culture and sports. You could call it
"Ministry of a Ton of Stuff". It's like the Baby Consuelo
and Casagrande couple - you keep wondering, "Who paired
them up? Where did they meet? Goodness!" This diverse, to say the least, entity
is currently led by João Roma, who, during a livestream with Bolsonaro,
criticized social isolation and defended the reduced value
of the emergency grant. And it's good to remember that the
grant wasn't created by Bolsonaro, but by the Congress, right after
the government presented a laughable project to help
Brazilians during the pandemic. Within the Ministry of Citizenship,
anti-hunger initiatives have gotten
less and less resources. The Food Acquisition Program,
for instance, which could have saved us now,
received, in 2019, 188 million reais - a sixth of what it had
during its heyday. And in 2020, its initial budget
was even smaller - only 101 million reais. When the pandemic began,
a provisional measure increased that budget
to 500 million reais, but Bolsonaro's government
only used 36 million, 7% of that value. And it seems like Bolsonaro wasn't
satisfied with just adults starving, because the government's food policies
have also turned against children. Due to the pandemic
and schools closing, circa seven million children have
lost access to school lunch. And this time, Alckmin
had nothing to do with it. The Congress approved that families
were sent the lunch money to assure that the children were fed.
This money was approved and ensured. And you know what Bolsonaro did?
He vetoed the law! He prevented the schoolless children
from getting their money for food. Bolsonaro isn't a president -
he's a family movie villain. I'd say he's like the bad guy
who takes candy from children, but since school lunches
are balanced meals, it'd be more correct to say
he takes protein from children. But we all know Bolsonaro
knows squat about economy, as he himself has said
countless times. So, in order for us to understand
how it's gotten to this, we need to hear the
main reference of economy. He, who supposedly has all
the answers: Paulo Guedes. In regards to rice prices,
Minister Guedes said that it rose because the lives of
impoverished people improved. Yes. Listen... Yes, the poorest citizens are buying things.
They're going to supermarkets, buying building materials... It's actually a sign that their
living conditions are improving. The price of rice has increased
because they're buying more. Basically, he's saying that
the price of rice has increased because everything is okay! People have money,
so they're throwing it around. "Yo, today, everyone's rice
is on me! Mr. sushiman, I want double
the rice on my sushi, 'cause I got paid today!"
That makes zero sense, because, as every
economist knows, rice is one of the rare products
that has negative elasticity, which means that the less money
people have, the more it sells. Why? Because you eat more rice
when you have no protein to go with it. That's why the quality of a boxed lunch
is inversely proportional to the amount of rice put in it. It's terrifying that
the Minister of Economy doesn't know such a basic fact!
But it seems that, despite that, he's more popular than ever.
According to himself, at least. I go into supermarkets
and people thank me. Sometimes they say,
"We pray for you, we feel what you're
doing for us." That is a greater reward
than any praise. I think that when he says "market",
he means the financial market. Or maybe he's not hearing right.
Maybe at the supermarket, someone shouted, "Fuck you!",
and he answered, "No, thank YOU!" "Fuck you so much!"
"Thank you so much, too!" The only reason things aren't any worse
is because the civil society joined forces in a network
of solidarity to help the hungry. The MST, for instance,
has donated over 3,400 tons of food since the start of the pandemic.
Free food, paid by the movement itself. And MTST has been opening
dozens of community cafeterias in various Brazilian states,
each one offering at least a meal a day. CUFA created
the Full Pot campaign, intent on donating two million
food baskets throughout Brazil, and the Black Coalition for Rights
joined eight other allies to launch the
"People are Hungry" campaign, that has been giving food
to over 220,000 families suffering from food insecurity. And many other organizations, from small
collectives to religious entities, have also been mobilizing.
They're doing what Bolsonaro knows to be Christian,
yet criticizes: breaking the bread. And despite the controversial
parts involving incest, the Bible has good tips
on how to be a decent person. Right now, it's donating
to those who need it. Therefore, donate. The website of the
Black Coalition for Rights's campaign has a very simple name:
temgentecomfome.com.br. Just access it, pick whatever
amount you want, and donate it. And I know what you're thinking. "What's the use for donations
if Bolsonaro remains in power?" Unfortunately, driving Bolsonaro
out of there is something we can't do in time for the next meal. So, in the meantime,
we have to break the bread, but we don't need to give up
on the revolution. Or the impeachment, if you're calmer.
Or 2022, if you're in more of a WP mood. The Bible, in fact,
does go over this, as read by Cid Moreira,
in "Proverbs"... Whoever sows injustice
will reap calamity, and the rod of his
fury will fail. Whoever has a bountiful eye
will be blessed for he shares his bread
with the poor. Drive out a scoffer,
and strife will go out, and quarreling
and abuse will cease. The eyes of the LORD
keep watch over knowledge, but he overthrows
the words of the traitor. That's it for this Greg News!
"Good night, cockroach faces".
