Text description provided by the architects. The Project for the new office of the Santa Elisa, an orange producer farm, is part of a series of projects being carried out in order to modernize and adapt its facilities.  The office specifically intended to bring together the various management offices within the farm, that were previously scattered around small buildings created at different times over the years, or old houses converted into offices. The goal here was to bring the business and field workers activities closer. © André ScarpaIn order to achieve this goal one of the main premises was to create a continuous space, free of structural elements where separations could be seen trough to connect visually and physically people within the building and its surroundings. © André ScarpaFacing the opposite way, being more secluded from the public access, with a more reserved view of the fields, are the conference and transit rooms, destined for the regular and temporary service providers, such as consultants and clients. In this same side, facing west protected from direct sunlight, are the restrooms and pantry, enclosed and directed to the interior of the ensemble. © André ScarpaAll of the rooms in the building have system of lightweight seal in the walls with visible cement plates in the exterior and paint in the interior The see trough closings are made of tempered glass with aluminum profile and tubular metallic interlocking For the roof a metallic ceiling in a 7,5x7,5 cm grid that allow the structure to be viewed and also for maintenance of electrical and lightning to be conducted You'll now receive updates based on what you follow Personalize your stream and start following your favorite authors If you have done all of this and still can't find the email We encourage you to republish Dialogue Earth articles, online or in print, under the Creative Commons license. Please read our republishing guidelines to get started It’s been four days since Mariana Cristina Lourdes Moreira has been able to eat properly When she and her three small children lived in Santo Antônio de Posse a rural town of 23,000 people around two hours from São Paulo earned money picking oranges on a nearby farm she could fill seven crates in a 10-hour shift Moreira had lived in São Paulo once before but had to move back home to help her mother look after her brother When she looked back on her time in the city she remembered how kind some of its people had been So as hunger became a more regular occurrence in her home and when she could no longer bear to wipe the tears from her children’s cheeks she scraped together enough money to take the bus back to São Paulo sitting at a cafeteria table at the downtown São Martinho de Lima Community Centre Moreira pulls back the peel of a mango for her six-year-old daughter 2 – munch on bread and sip chocolate milk while they wait for help with their own fruit a group of volunteers led by Father Júlio Lancellotti – a champion for people experiencing hunger and homelessness – serves breakfast seven days a week to between 700 and 1,000 people Some who come for the free meals have struggled with food security for most of their lives. Others more recently became a part of the more than 33 million people in Brazil now going hungry, after the pandemic put 377 people out of work per hour in its first year alone and the rising cost of food made it nearly impossible to sustain their families “Now I can only buy half of what I used to,” says Moreira “Lots of times I’ve had to put things back after the cashier rings them up because I didn’t have enough money.” When the Covid-19 pandemic began in 2020, almost 3.1 billion people around the world could not afford a healthy diet. According to the “State of Food Security and Nutrition in the World” report 117.3 million of those people were in Latin America And as food continues to become more unaffordable – the report notes that the cost of a healthy diet will rise again as food prices have surged in 2021 and 2022 – food security and proper nutrition are expected to move even further out of reach the prevalence of moderate and severe food insecurity – a lack of physical social and economic access to safe and healthy food – reached 37.5% But as millions of Latin Americans go hungry — or chronically undernourished — many of them continue to produce food for others Brazil, Argentina, Paraguay and Uruguay, among other countries in the region, have continued to boost commodities production and exports over the last few years. In the first half of 2022, Brazil’s agribusiness exports, mainly meat, soy and coffee, totalled US$79.3 billion, up 29.4% and considered a new record for the semester That growth has been mostly attributed to the increase in food prices significantly affected by the war in Ukraine’s disruption of supply chains and influence on fertiliser and energy prices At the 2018 Brazilian Agribusiness Congress, Alan Bojanic, the then representative for the UN’s Food and Agriculture Organization in the country, said that Brazil had “the conditions to be the world’s breadbasket,” citing the positive growth of its grain and meat markets Export has become more attractive to commodities producers in recent years as the devaluation of the Brazilian real has made their sales more competitive outside the country than within it Argentina’s agribusiness exports have also never brought as many dollars into the country as they have this year. A report by the Rosario Stock Exchange (BCR) says that agriculture contributed US$65 out of every US$100 exported during the first half of 2022 a record-breaking US$22 billion was brought into the country in those six months through the export of grains undernourishment and hunger continue to grow in Argentina runaway inflation that has already reached 70% year-on-year a high market concentration in the food industry and a weak macroeconomy are just some of the factors that help explain how a country with such wealth in agribusiness can struggle to feed its own population where there are more and more poor people,” says Enrique Martínez coordinator of the Institute for Popular Production and former director of the National Institute of Industrial Technology (INTI) has three children and a husband who just lost his job She lives in the southwest of the city of Rosario and has been in charge of a community kitchen that initially served 200 families easily 10 or 15 new families a week looking for a plate of food or something to snack on,” she says adding that now that her partner is unemployed she is “experiencing first-hand not having any money to buy food.” “Meat is a privilege that we don’t have,” she says it’s stew simmered in two pots – one holding 100 litres and another 50 litres – filled with rice because when my husband was working a white-collar job There is so much inequality in this country.” she would do odd jobs as a server to try to make ends meet but there still wasn’t enough to keep food on the table her children going hungry is one less thing to worry about thanks to the volunteers at the São Martinho de Lima Community Centre She’s already reserved a spot for the four of them to live in a squatters’ community of about 100 people located just across the street from the centre “There’s just enough room for everything we need,” she says adding that they were given mattresses to sleep on “Now all I need to do is buy some nails and save 50 reais (US$9.50) to pay one of the men there to help put up our walls.” As a Black woman who works informal jobs and who has children in her home Moreira represents all of the sectors of the population most affected by hunger in the country According to a study conducted by Brazilian Research Network on Food and Nutrition Sovereignty and Security (Rede Penssan) hunger among Brazil’s Black population increased by 70% between 2020 and 2022 titled “Olhe Para a Fome” (Look at the Hunger) also highlights that households headed by women were more affected than those headed by men with the percentage of such households experiencing hunger jumping from 11.2% to 19.3% in the last two years Hunger is also greater in households where the person responsible is unemployed (36.1%) Moreira spends the day travelling the city’s subway selling gum and sweets to passengers on the packed trains She could join the many other Brazilians who sell similar products at traffic lights but she worries for her children’s safety next to the busy city streets and give her extra money when they see the kids One man she met offered her a one-off job cleaning three houses that he planned to rent out Thrilled to have enough work to pay for setting up her home across from the community centre But when she finished the back-breaking labour the man told her he didn’t have the money to pay her unsure of how to make up for the time she had spent doing the unpaid work Moreira dreams of finding a steady job so that she can give her children more stability a cash transfer of 600 reais (US$115) per month for families living in poverty or extreme poverty launched by the current federal government after it dismantled a similar welfare programme called Bolsa Família But Moreira lives in constant fear that it will be lowered or cut but it still doesn’t cover everything they need,” she says moderate and severe food insecurity grew in the last two years even for those who receive the benefit For 32.7% of families that receive Auxílio Brasil and earn less than half of Brazil’s minimum wage – 1,212 reais (US$232) a month – per person in their household Victoria Clérici is one of the leaders of an Argentine association of informal recyclers a job she says is becoming more and more popular and which she estimates is currently done by 300,000 people across the country are mostly “impossible” purchases for people living in Argentina’s working-class neighbourhoods what we used to give to the dogs,” she says “Chicken is consumed more because it’s cheaper and then we can at least add something to the stew.” the neighbourhoods located on the outskirts of Argentina’s big cities suffer much more from inflation than the more affluent sectors as they have less access to large shops that have the financial backing to offer bargains but food in these neighbourhoods is sometimes more expensive there isn’t as much variety and there are no supermarkets that can sell things cheaper,” she says noting that what most people can afford to buy isn’t healthy “Even the food that arrives as state aid is all dry and low in protein.” items in a typical Cesta Básica – the “basic basket” of staple foods such as rice commonly distributed to poor households – also don’t provide complete and healthy meals to those who receive them She and her children eat at the community centre every day while she works to save the 50 reais she needs to finish setting up their new home She’s already working on enrolling her two girls in school now that they’ve moved (her son is still too young to go) and she’s hoping to find a steady job so she can put food on the table leaving more room at the centre for others who need a helping hand from the volunteers Jorgelina Hiba is freelance environmental reporter from Argentina Select from our bespoke newsletters for news best suited to you We’ve sent you an email with a confirmation link 我们向您的邮箱发送了一封确认邮件，请点击邮件中的确认链接。如果您未收到该邮件，请查看垃圾邮件。 If you would like more information about the terms of our republication policy or permission to use content, please write to us: [email protected] We use cookies to ensure that we give you the best experience on our website. By continuing to use our site, you are agreeing to our use of cookies. Read our privacy and cookies policy for further information Dialogue Earth uses cookies to provide you with the best user experience possible Cookie information is stored in your browser It allows us to recognise you when you return to Dialogue Earth and helps us to understand which sections of the website you find useful Required Cookies should be enabled at all times so that we can save your preferences for cookie settings Dialogue Earth - Dialogue Earth is an independent organisation dedicated to promoting a common understanding of the world's urgent environmental challenges. Read our privacy policy Cloudflare - Cloudflare is a service used for the purposes of increasing the security and performance of web sites and services. Read Cloudflare's privacy policy and terms of service Dialogue Earth uses several functional cookies to collect anonymous information such as the number of site visitors and the most popular pages Keeping these cookies enabled helps us to improve our website Google Analytics - The Google Analytics cookies are used to gather anonymous information about how you use our websites. We use this information to improve our sites and report on the reach of our content. Read Google's privacy policy and terms of service This website uses the following additional cookies: execute and analyze marketing programs with greater ease and efficiency while enabling publishers to maximize their returns from online advertising Note that you may see cookies placed by Google for advertising under the Google.com or DoubleClick.net domains Twitter - Twitter is a real-time information network that connects you to the latest stories opinions and news about what you find interesting Simply find the accounts you find compelling and follow the conversations Linkedin - LinkedIn is a business- and employment-oriented social networking service that operates via websites and mobile apps Subscribe to our English language newsletter and keep up-to-date with the most important news from Brazil All materials contained in this page may not be reproduced in any media without the prior written permission of Folhapress.