Renato Maluf from the Federal Rural University of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil joins the Centre for Food Policy for the Food Bites series and explores the current issues in the food system and what civil society organisations and academics could be doing to work towards solutions that address the issues within the food system.

Renato Sérgio Maluf is Professor in the Department of Development, Agriculture and Society (DDAS) and the Graduate Programme of Social Sciences in Agriculture, Development and Society, at the Federal Rural University of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. He is also Coordinator of the Reference Centre on Food and Nutrition Sovereignty and Security at the University and associate researcher at the Observatory on Public Policies for Agriculture. Renato was President of the Brazilian National Council on Food and Nutrition Security (CONSEA) (2007-2011), Member of the Steering Committee of the High Level Panel of Experts in Food Security, UN Committee for World Food Security (2010-2014), and has been a Member of the Coordination of the Brazilian Forum for Food and Nutrition Sovereignty and Security since 1998 and Member of the Chaire UNESCO – Alimentations du Monde, Comité d´Orientation, Montpeliier-France, since 2011.

Renato has a PhD in Political Economy from the State University of Campinas, Brazil (1988). In 1996-7 he was a Post-doctoral visiting fellow at Oxford University, and in 2000-01 based at the Centre de Recherches sur le Brésil Contemporain, École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales, Paris, France.