When Luiz Inacio Lula de Silva talks himself into a rage on his tour of the whole country, his supporters can be sure of one thing: sooner or later the presidential candidate will be about something that is almost sacred in Brazil: food.
Grilling is a “fundamental right of the Brazilian people. It can’t be that Brazil is the first meat producer in the world where people have to queue in front of the butcher’s shop to get bones at the end.”
If he were elected, controlling beef exports would be high on his agenda, more meat would stay in the country and at lower prices. China in particular is importing huge amounts of Brazilian beef as a result of swine fever in the Middle Kingdom in 2018 and 2019.
Under Jair Bolsonaro’s government, food has become a “luxury item” and Brazilians have eaten less beef in recent years because of him.
Lula’s campaign hits a sore spot in President Jair Bolsonaro: Meat prices have skyrocketed in tandem with rising inflation. Last year, beef consumption in Brazil was therefore only 24.6 kilos per year. This means that Brazil is still number three in the world behind Argentina and the USA.
But consumption is significantly lower than in 2006, when the population consumed an average of 32.08 kilos. President then: Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva. Nutrition expert Lis Blanco says: “Meat is a status symbol because it has become more expensive.”
Beef consumption in Brazil is culturally ingrained, for many a meal is not complete without meat.
Lula’s campaign appearances are a bit of a trip down memory lane. Almost 20 years ago, as President, he launched his widely acclaimed “Fome Zero” program to combat hunger in Brazil.
In January 2003, in his inaugural speech, he declared that he would make it possible for all Brazilians to have breakfast, lunch and dinner.
Almost two decades later, Lula’s campaign narrative is about reduced meat consumption. For Blanco, a clever marketing campaign and mobilization strategy that unites the whole country from north to south: “Just as talking about hunger was a sure strategy for Lula’s Labor Party in the 2002 elections to get elected, today eating meat is the way to talk about hunger in a more contemporary way,” she says.
“‘Everyone will be able to eat barbecue’ means, ‘Everyone will have the money to be able to barbecue.'”
But how does Lula’s new campaign promise to protect the environment, with cattle as climate killers, fit in? The UN climate report notes that beef is the food that contributes the most to greenhouse gas emissions and deforestation in the Amazon rainforest.
Beef production requires 36 times more land than the production of vegetable proteins, the grazing cows emit huge amounts of methane, and there is also the immense water consumption in beef production.
But that didn’t stop Bolsonaro’s challenger from sharply attacking the incumbent president in the TV duel. Because the deforestation of the rainforest in Brazil has reached a record high, Bolsonaro is in the process of “destroying the country”.
During the election campaign, Lula performs the most contradictory balancing act: denouncing the current government’s environmental sins and at the same time propagating the “right to have a barbecue”.
Because in the left-of-center camp, where the traditional Lula voters cavort, you can’t score points by not eating meat. In June, Congressman David Miranda tweeted a message in support of the Meatless Monday campaign.
The international movement, which started in 2003, calls for people not to eat meat on Mondays to protect the environment and health.
Miranda received a veritable Shitstorm. Critics accused the politician of supporting a campaign that completely ignored the reality in Brazil – even today, many people in the country are starving.
In fact, extreme poverty, which also fell under Lula’s aegis, rose again to 4.6 percent in 2019, and the number is likely to be even higher today due to the corona pandemic.
But a Lula figure has also gone viral in the favelas in recent weeks, with the slogan: “Meat, beer and Lula 2022.”
Author: Bruno Lupion
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The original of this article “”Right to barbecue” will be Brazil’s election campaign hit” comes from Deutsche Welle.
