Political institutions and food security: the role of policy instruments and public infrastructures in the crisis management of the COVID-19 pandemic in Brazil

This study examines how political institutions, policy instruments and public infrastructures shaped food and nutrition security outcomes during the COVID-19 pandemic in Brazil. Using a historical–institutionalist approach and longitudinal evidence (2015–2023), it argues that crisis outcomes were mediated by the institutional architecture governing food security policies. Within a structurally contradictory agrifood system – marked by the coexistence of export-oriented agribusiness and a structurally significant family farming sector, both responsible for maintaining domestic food supply – ideological shifts between 2019 and 2022 translated into institutional downgrading, fiscal contraction and the weakening of regulatory mechanisms. These processes reduced the state’s buffering capacity and contributed to rising food insecurity despite high agricultural productivity. The findings demonstrate that food and nutrition security in crisis contexts depends to a great extent on the durability, coordination and political safeguarding of interconnected policy instruments and infrastructures.