He taught at the University of Brazil (today's UFRJ) and was chairman of the United Nations' Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO).

For many years he was president of the Association Médicale Internationale pour l’Etude des Conditions de Vie et de Santé (The International Medical Association for the Study of the Conditions of Life and Health) and member of other international organizations.

Published in 1946, the book emphasizes the socio-economic backgrounds of the biological manifestation of hunger and condemns the physical determinism.

[3] Originally published in the U.S. with the title "The Geography of Hunger" in 1952, translated into 26 languages, is one of the classic works on food and population.

[6][7] As a result, for the first time in human history, a World Constituent Assembly convened to draft and adopt the Constitution for the Federation of Earth.