Geografia da fome

by Josué de Castro

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Genres: Nonfiction, Brazil, Sociology

228 pages, Unknown Binding

First published January 1, 1946

About the author

Josué de Castro was a Brazilian geographer, physician, writer and activist against world hunger.
Josué Apolonio de Castro was the author of many books, including detailed surveys about the phenomena of hunger in Brazil and 1951 Geopolítica da Fome "Geopolitics of Hunger ", which has been translated from Portuguese into many other languages. He always denounced hunger as a man-made thing. He worked for the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) in different positions. In 1954, Josué de Castro received the International Peace Prize. The Josuè de Castro Foundacion is a Recife, Pernambuco/ Brazilian. Geographer , friend for Bertrand, write: “It was neither at Sorbonne, nor at any other else wise university that I was introduced to the hunger phenomenon. The hunger revealed itself spontaneously to my eyes in the mangroves of Capibaribe, in the miserable neighborhoods of Recife - Afogados, Pina, Santo Amaro, Ilha do Leite. That was my Sorbonne".

Reviews

[Valentina Ruas · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very interesting views on how the problem of hunger needs to be seen holistically, so it covers the biological, sanitary, historical and social aspects of it. I like how the author completely debunked the determinist idea that people are conditioned to the land and its geographical conditions, so that hunger was solely an issue caused by certain hostile environments. Instead, he analysed how structural problems trapped whole populations in a condition of endemic or epidemic hunger, going from the Portuguese colonisation to the struggle of trying to create an independent Brazilian economy in the 60s that made a mistake of focusing too much on a rapid industrialisation and neglecting agriculture and the people depending on it (most of the demographic at the time)- therefore worsening the scenario of social inequality by favouring the rich, foreign economic groups and privileged regions. I also love how he emphasised multiple times that the way out of the systemic hunger needed to include an agrarian reform, a bold statement at the time, since the ones who defended this “taboo” would soon be persecuted by the dictatorial government. All of this while giving full details of each region’s food habits, which kind of nutrients they lacked and the most common diseases caused by that