ASSESSING FOOD (IN)SECURITY SCENARIOS IN BRAZIL USING OFICIAL LAND COVER CHANGE PRODES DATA

Land use changes in Brazil are justified to supply national and international demands for food, feeding and other commodities. In 2011 the Brazilian undernourishment prevalence (UnP) and starvation were faced by 16,27M people, with a much worse scenario in 2022 as estimates indicate 33,1 M facing any type of hunger. On the other hand, the total planted area in Brazil increased from 61,8 to 81,2 Mha in the same period according to IBGE. FEEDME model simulates food (in)security scenarios and, beyond socioeconomic variables, it is based on land use/cover maps retrieved from remote sensing data. This work analyzes UnP scenarios assessed using oficial recently released data on land cover change PRODES and TERRACLASS data. Under the current Brazilian diet the amount of land required to decrease UnP cannot be achieved only by increasing protecting areas, but requires large-scale implementation of climate change mitigation actions.