Brazil is the 4th world’s largest food producer and has the 6th biggest rate of malnutrition.
Source: Instituto Akatu, 2003.

Let’s take a look at the data on starvation and malnutrition in Brazil:

About the divergences on the methods for calculating the total number of starving people, an article has been published in “Conjuntura Econômica” magazine (Issue from Jan/05). The author is Marcelo Neri, Chief of Social Policies Center (CPS) from the Brazilian Economy Institute (IPS) of Fundação Getúlio Vargas (FGV). He states that “the measure of concepts such as starvation, indigence and poverty is like any other reference for social well-being, that is, it depends on the value judgments implicit in the adopted methodology”.

Economical research institutes, such as IPEA (Applied Economical Research Institute) and FGV (Fundação Getúlio Vargas), in Brazil, and the World Bank and ECLAC (Economical Comission for Latin America and the Caribbean), have created standards to show the number of people who don’t earn money enough to afford basic needs - food included. However, “the definitions for poverty line and indigence (and therefore the results on the number and proportion of poor and indigent people) are always affected by a certain degree of subjectivity. (…) Each institution or researcher chooses the line he considers the most accurate. That’s why there is so much polemic on the “real” number of poor and indigent people” (IPEA, 2002).

Commonly, a family is considered below poverty line if the family total income is not enough to afford food, housing, transportation and clothing, and below misery line if they can’t at least afford food.

All information in this item is part of Brazilian Human Development Atlas. This software uses indicators directly extracted from (1991 and 2000) Demographic Census (sample surveys), from IBGE. The Atlas is available for download at IPEA website.

The Atlas considers as INDIGENT: person whose income is less than R$ 37,75 (1/4 of the minimum wage from Aug/2000); POOR: person whose income is less than R$ 75.50 (1/2 of the minimum wage from Aug/2000).

According to data from 2000, the very same Atlas states that 32,75% of Brazilian population had a monthly income inferior to R$ 75,50 (which means that about 55.609.228 people live below poverty line in the country, considering that the total population was 169.799.170 in 2000 .
Source: IPEA 1999

And let’s also take a look at the data for waste:

Out of every 100 food boxes coming from the field, only 39 of them reach consumers’ tables. Supermarkets waste 2.52% of their total income, that is, almost R$ 2 billion. Every day, 39,000 tons of food are thrown away. That would be enough to feed 19 million people including breakfast, lunch and dinner. 60% of the garbage in São Paulo city is organic, that is, food leftovers.Source: Special Issue from Superinterressante Magazine 2002 and Instituto Recicle Milhões de Vidas.

Info on starvation, waste and malnutrition
The various Faces of Brazil
More info on waste and its consequences
More info on starvation and its consequences.
Conclusion
What is starvation, malnutrition and subnutrition