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Official definitions of a family farmer differ from country to country, particularly in Latin America where there are 3 categories: subsistence’ farming, intermediate family farmers and consolidated farms of a larger area[1]. In Brazil, the Family Farming Law (Law 11,326) defines family farmers through four criteria of land tenure, farm size, dependence on farm income, and the use of predominantly family labor[1]. In Brazil, the large majority of family farms are in the northeastern, southern and southeast Brazil. Family farmers in Brazil produce more than 70%of food consumed domestically. During the 1990s, the Lula administration implemented a set of policies that addressed food security on federal, state and municipal levels, the aim of which was to increase federal government support to family farmers. Policies targeting family farmers were designed to introduce market incentives, promote adequate food distribution and provide technical assistance.

PRONAF (National Program for the Strengthening of Family Farming)
Set against a backdrop of policies opening Brazil to neoliberal economic forces and intense competition through Mercosul, PRONAF marked the institutionalization of a differentiated policy approach to family farming in Brazil. The economic and social importance of family farmers and their specific needs were recognized through PRONAF, at least on paper. The creation of PRONAF has been credited to favorable political circumstances, beginning with Brazil's re-democratization in the 1980s and a receptive Cardoso administration to the mobilizations of a number of agrarian civil groups. Groups that were mobilizing across the country included rural trade unions that had existed during the military regime, small farmer and landless worker movements and rural women and indigenous movements.

In 1999, the Ministry of Agrarian Development (MDA) was created to support family farmers and promote land reform and sustainable land development. In the early 2000s, a host of government policies and government-supported programs in the interest of family farmers have emerged, where the family farm is recognized as a pillar of national development. . Since then, the MDA along with other institutions were created with the family farmers and other traditional communities' interests in mind.

The Fome Zero Programe (The Zero Hunger Program)
The Fome Zero Program is a federal program aimed increasing food and nutrition security in rural and urban poor communities. It was instituted in 2001 against the backdrop of increasing recognition for family farmers in Brazilian agrarian policies, and a consequence of 20 years of mobilizing by actors at different levels of society for policy change. The Program is built on four axes: food access, strengthening family farming, income generation and articulation, mobilization and social control. Family farmers play a large role in the Program's food security goals: the Family Farming Food Acquisition Program (PAA), the National School Meal Program (Pnae) and the Family Grant Cash Transfer (Bolsa Família Program) were implementations that aimed to encourage family farm production of staple foods through cash and program incentives, facilitate distribution of food to families and schools, and also provide conditional health care and social assistance to 42 million vulnerable Brazilians.

The notion of access to food and proper nutrition was first recorded in official terminology Brazil as "food security" (segurança alimentar), written in a federal document in 1986. The term, however, rose into popular consciousness in 1993 after campaigns by the a national movement called Citizens' Action Against Hunger and Poverty and for Life. In that same period, Consea (National Food and Nutritional Security Council) was established and the 1st National Conference on Food Security was organized by a combination of policy and grassroots mobilizations. Consea ran from 1993 to 1994, with little success in shaping public policies, was halted until after the establishment of the Fome Zero Program.