Addressing the Right to Food Through Food Expenditure Burdens: Distributional Evidence Among Low‐Income Farming Families in Brazil (2012–2023)

ABSTRACT Household food expenditure continues to be a key factor in ensuring the realization of the Human Right to Adequate Food. Particularly in Brazil, access to food can be limited by economic constraints in vulnerable families, especially among farming families, who have been more vulnerable to food insecurity in recent years in the country. This study examines the association between the proportion of income allocated to food expenditures, per capita household income and sociodemographic characteristics among low‐income farming families in Brazil. The study utilizes repeated cross‐sectional microdata for the period from 2012 to 2023, extracted from Brazil's main registry of individuals and families in situations of social vulnerability (CadÚnico). Quantile regression models were used to verify the effects of covariates at different quantiles of the conditional distribution of the outcome. The results suggested that food expenses absorbed a large part of the budget of farming families during the period analyzed. Over time, elasticity patterns remained relatively stable. The modeling step suggested unequal effects of Engel's Law among low‐income Brazilian farming families, confirming that the weight of food expenses is structurally heavier among poorer families. The realization of the human right to food in Brazil depends fundamentally on a sustained political commitment to redistributive, distribution‐sensitive, and food system‐oriented policies that protect vulnerable populations, such as farming families, from both structural deprivation and systemic shocks.