Sources close to the Labor Party (PT) campaign said Lula will attend the first Northeast Family Farming Fair in that city this Thursday and later have lunch with the governors of the region’s nine states.
The agricultural exhibition includes the participation of cooperatives, associations, traditional communities, as well as farmer and trade union movements.
In the evening hours, the former labor leader takes part in a public event that focuses on small and medium-sized farmers, cooperatives and solidarity economy.
The PT expects between 10,000 and 15,000 people to attend at the local multi-purpose stadium.
Apparently, cooperativism will be one of the priorities of Lula’s government plan, which asked to put it “on the agenda to help solve the problem facing millions of Brazilians in need.” It is necessary to put the issue on Brazil’s agenda,” the former president said during a visit to Porto Alegre earlier this month.
According to the official program released by the PT’s leadership, the worsening hunger in the country, where more than 33.1 million Brazilians currently live without food, will be the central theme of Lula’s meetings with the nine governors of the Northeast.
According to the PT leader, the goal is to discuss the pattern of hunger and what can be done to reverse the current picture, with levels of food insecurity not registered by the South American giant until the 1990s.
The panorama is more serious in the northern regions, where 25.7 percent of families suffer from hunger, and in the Northeast, with an index of 21.
In absolute terms, the Northeast has more hunger: there are 12 million people with severe food insecurity.
“In each city visited, we will hold meetings to listen to different sectors of society and discuss improvements for Brazil. It would not be possible to do what we did when we were in government (2003-2011) if we had not learned with the people,” Lula recently wrote on a social network.
After completing his visit to Natal, the former President will continue to Maceió, capital of the state of Alagoas (northeast), and then arrive in Aracaju, capital of the territorial division of Sergipe, also in this region.
To date, Lula, the PT’s lead candidate, is leading all opinion polls ahead of October’s election, in which far-right leader Jair Bolsonaro is seeking re-election.
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