The retired teacher implemented the Zero Hunger program during President Lula’s first government and was a former director-general of the FAO
Jornal da Unicamp | 08/10/2024
Recognized as the father of the Zero Hunger Program, Professor José Francisco Graziano da Silva received the title of professor emeritus from Unicamp this Monday (7). An agricultural engineer by training and retired professor from the Institute of Economics, the former extraordinary minister of Food Security (a period in which he implemented the Zero Hunger program during the first government of Luís Inácio Lula da Silva) and former director-general of the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), Graziano said he felt honored by the title and declared that his work is not over yet: “I continue to dedicate myself to showing the face of hunger.”
With a standing ovation at the University Council (Consu), the professor received recognition from the rector Antonio José de Almeida Meirelles, in the presence of friends and part of his family – his grandchildren Artur, Felipe and Gabriela and his son Emiliano Graziano da Silva, accompanied by his wife Juliana Furlaneto and his mother-in-law Marilena Furlaneto.
“My career is divided into two phases, which I consider complementary: the first, more academic, began as a student at the Escola Superior de Agricultura in Piracicaba. The second phase was when I left Unicamp to join the first Lula administration, where I stayed from 2003 to 2006. Then I went to FAO, where I stayed for 13 years. I like to combine academic activities with non-academic ones, which have always helped and inspired me a lot,” Graziano recalled.
Professor Walter Belik, also a retired professor at the IE and deputy director of the Instituto Fome Zero, as well as the honoree’s godfather and proposer of the nomination, spoke of Graziano’s importance in developing new approaches to the rural economy and as a disseminator of the debate on agrarian reform. “His trajectory as a researcher was exemplary. Later, he had a brilliant international career,” said Belik, who also participated in projects with the honoree and Professor Wilson Cano (1937-2020).
The director of the IE, Célio Hiratuka, who sat on the board of directors with Belik and Meirelles, highlighted Graziano’s participation in the Institute. “In addition to articulating academic knowledge with the transformation of civil society, he was fundamental in the creation of the Institute.” For Hiratuka, Graziano is an example of an intellectual who “worked very hard to change the world around him.”
Unicamp as a safe haven
“This title is something new and unprecedented for me. It makes me very proud, because the University has always been my refuge, my place to come back to. I would go out to do things, but I had a safe haven to return to, where I could refuel and reprocess what I had to do. This combination always encouraged me to leave and come back, to reflect on all my activities and to consolidate them in a book, article or supervised thesis. I am happy that today this has been useful and valued, as the rector said”, said Graziano, who has already been honored with 25 national and international honors, including Doctor Honoris Causa titles and medals of honor from several universities. In 2013, he received the Order of Rio Branco, granted by the Brazilian government. “Professor Graziano took the name of Unicamp to Brazil and to the world”, said Meirelles. “We need to legitimize and create references for our society. An emeritus professor is an example to be followed by the country”, added the rector.
A graduate of the Luiz de Queiroz College of Agriculture (Esalq) at the University of São Paulo (USP) in 1972, with a master’s degree in rural economics and sociology from USP and a doctorate from Unicamp, Graziano completed postdoctoral studies at the universities of London and California. Retired from the IE, where he dedicated himself to teaching and research in the area of rural development and food security, he now works at the Instituto Fome Zero.Graduado pela Escola Superior de Agricultura Luiz de Queiroz (Esalq) da Universidade de São Paulo (USP), em 1972, com mestrado em Economia e Sociologia rural pela USP e doutorado pela Unicamp, Graziano fez pós-doutorado pelas universidades de Londres e da Califórnia. Aposentado pelo IE, onde se dedicou ao ensino e à pesquisa na área de desenvolvimento rural e segurança alimentar, hoje atua no Instituto Fome Zero.
For the eradication of hunger
“I continue to dedicate myself to showing the face of hunger. I fought hard for this, I participated in the discussions on the 2030 Agenda. The first two millennium goals are to end poverty and eradicate hunger. If we cannot eradicate poverty and hunger in times of peace, we will not achieve any of the others that concern health, education, equality, etc. This is the basis of the formulation. And unfortunately we are doing very badly, we are going in the opposite direction. After the pandemic, we managed to regain some momentum, as happened in Brazil in 2023, we reduced the indicators again, but we are still very far from where we should be and from where we want to be, which is complete eradication. So, I continue to dedicate myself to this, hoping that I will have many years of life, at least until 2030, to see this implemented. I thank you for your generosity in being here and for your patience in listening to me,” said Graziano.
The professor highlighted the presence of several friends, but made a special mention of Sônia Bergamasco, a professor at the School of Agricultural Engineering (Feagri) at Unicamp: “She was my boss in the Rural Economics Department at the School of Medical and Biological Sciences in Botucatu in the mid-1970s.” According to Graziano, the recognition with the title is not just a personal achievement: “I had invaluable support and resources from partners, friends, and colleagues who walked this path alongside me. I want to share this title with them, knowing that without their contributions I would not have gotten this far. There are many, I ask permission not to name them all.”
Meeting with Lula
Graziano participated in the founding of the Workers’ Party (PT) in Campinas. He recalls how he met President Lula in 1982, before the start of his campaign for governor of São Paulo. “There was a meeting at the metalworkers’ union and I went to talk about the work I was doing at the rural workers’ federation. When it was over, we were invited to Lula’s house. I went and never left. We have had a very close relationship for 42 years and learned a lot from both sides. He thinks I was the best teacher of his life and I think he was the best advisor of mine. A guy who always taught us to prioritize among the urgent matters. Good politicians have to be able to distinguish what is a priority among the many urgent matters, and he chose the fight against hunger, based on his own personal experience, but also because he understands that a hungry person will not get anywhere. Nobody told him about this, he told everyone and convinced them. Today he is an example. As a researcher and disseminator, I continue to write. My job today is to talk about hunger uninterruptedly. I often tell my wife: “That’s all I do.”
Author of several books, including From seasonal workers to rural workers e What is the agrarian question?, in addition to articles and dissertation and thesis guidance, the honoree’s intellectual and academic production was remembered throughout the title award ceremony. Graziano highlighted the points he considers important in his career, such as his entrance into university.
Memories
“I joined in 1968, the year that never ended. I was immediately elected vice-president of the academic center, the only one in Brazil that remained free and had not been subjected to the laws of the dictatorship. We began a fight to preserve free education at USP, against paid education. This left a big mark on my life, in every sense. Because of my experience at the academic center, I graduated, but I did not receive my diploma. I could not work. I was an intern at the Esalq computer center. One day, the rector of the São Paulo State University (Unesp) called, saying that they had received a computer and asking ‘does anyone know how to use it?’. In 1974, after graduating, I entered the São Paulo State University, on the Jaboticabal campus, and was later transferred to Botucatu. In 1978, I came to Unicamp as a student. I stayed there until 2002. I joined Unicamp as a professor at the invitation of Professor João Manoel, who passed on an invitation from Professor Zeferino Vaz. I had participated in a seminar, as a speaker, in which João Manoel and Zeferino were present, and I spoke about the “boias-frias”, and Zeferino was impressed to see that someone was studying that, because at that time no one knew how to explain what the “boia-fria” was and what was going to happen to the “boias-frias”. He invited me and challenged me: if I completed my thesis in two years, I would be hired. And I succeeded. I owe much of this to the rigor and discipline of my advisor, Tamás Szmrecsányi, who has already passed away. If it weren’t for Tamás, I wouldn’t have been able to join Unicamp as a professor. After finishing my thesis, I participated in the preparation of the master’s and doctorate programs in Economic Development, Space and Environment, where we sought to convey not only knowledge of Economics, but mainly the management of economic policy”, recalled Graziano.
The honoree also mentioned the importance of professors Inácio Rangel and Maria da Conceição Tavares in his life, and recalled his participation in the Rurbano project of the São Paulo Research Foundation (Fapesp), with professor Rodolfo Hoffmann, which lasted ten years, involving seven universities, dozens of researchers and a collection of books published in conjunction with Embrapa. “We were able to show that rural space was much larger than agricultural space, and that the dynamics of rural transformation came largely from the urbanization process.”
Brazil Can Kill Hunger
In addition to the Rurbano project, in the early 1990s, Graziano was involved in discussions at the Instituto Cidadania regarding the creation of a national food security policy manual, Brazil Can Kill Hunger. “This booklet was the embryo of the Zero Hunger program,” said Graziano. “In the second half of the 1990s, I divided my time between Unicamp and the so-called Citizenship Caravans. Between April 1996 and 2001, we traveled 401 cities and 40 km by bus throughout Brazil. We literally visited every corner of the country. This direct contact with the deep and very agrarian Brazil left a big mark on my life.”
According to the professor, Brazil was facing a statistics blackout at the time. “We didn’t have basic information,” he says. “It was a time of much action and much reflection. The caravans served to build the program with which candidate Luís Inácio Lula da Silva won the 2002 elections, including Fome Zero. In each location we visited, we received a suggestion of what to do to combat hunger, because hunger was everywhere, and as always hunger was hidden, it was deep down. We proposed to bring this to the fore in the political arena and to designate the Fome Zero program as the main policy, which was implemented by Lula. I took on the role of implementing this in the Extraordinary Ministry of Food Security, which went by the acronym Mesa, not by coincidence. We were literally setting the table for food security policies and establishing this set of programs that today are fortunately well known not only in Brazil, but also abroad. Hunger is always hidden and disorganized, and one of the fundamental roles in combating hunger is to bring it to light, to show it, so that we know how to confront it. And this was a great contribution that I managed to make to the IBGE when I was minister (which was not so easy) and to the FAO, which is the food security scale that was developed here based on studies at Unicamp.”
Graziano also recalled that the embryo of income transfer that gave rise to Bolsa Família, “which is a program now universally recommended to tackle the issue of hunger,” was also developed at Unicamp, through Ana Fonseca.Graziano ainda lembrou que também foi desenvolvido na Unicamp, através de Ana Fonseca, o embrião sobre transferência de renda que deu origem ao Bolsa Família, “que é um programa hoje universalmente recomendado pra enfrentar a questão da fome”.
Author: Adriana Vilar de Menezes
Image edition: Alex Calixto
Photos: Lúcio Camargo
First published in Jornal da Unicamp
https://jornal.unicamp.br/en/noticias/2024/10/08/em-cerimonia-no-consu-jose-graziano-recebe-titulo-de-professor-emerito/
