THE GLOBAL WINDOW OF TURKISH FOOD AND AGRICULTURE The Global Window of Turkish Food and Agriculture Sector
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Press release…
AK Party İzmir Deputy and Deputy Chairwoman of Local Administrations Ceyda Bölünmez Çankırı made a speech at a panel on the occasion of ’29 September International Day of Awareness of Food Loss and Waste” within the scope of the ‘Save Your Food, Protect Your Table’ project carried out jointly by the Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry and the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO).
A panel was held in İzmir within the scope of ’29 September International Day of Awareness of Food Loss and Waste’, which was announced with the decision taken in the United Nations General Assembly considering the importance of food loss and waste.
İzmir Governor Yavuz Selim Köşger, AK Party İzmir Deputy Ceyda Bölünmez Çankırı, İzmir Provincial Director of Agriculture and Forestry Mustafa Özen, FAO Turkey Representative Dr. Viorel Gutu, Ministry of Agriculture Director General of Foreign Relations Aylin Çağlayan Özcan and speakers attended.
“WE SIGNED A STUDY WITHOUT STEPPING ASIDE”
At the beginning of his speech in the programme, Deputy Bölünmez Çankırı emphasized that only a quarter of the waste would be enough to feed hundreds of millions of people, based on statistical data.
Bölünmez Çankırı continued his words as follows: “While 4 billion tonnes of food produced every year in the world should be enough for all humanity, according to the data of the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), 11 out of every 100 people struggle with hunger and 25 thousand people die of hunger every day. Almost 1.5 billion tonnes of food produced is wasted every year. However, avoiding only a quarter of this waste is more than enough to feed hundreds of millions of starving people.”
“According to FAO’s 2019 research, annual food loss and waste in Turkey is 26 million tonnes on average. 4.9 million loaves of bread are wasted every day. 50 percent of the vegetables and fruits produced are lost. We signed a study without stepping aside, saying that new solutions should be implemented to reduce the amount of food that goes to waste,” she added.
“INSTEAD OF WAITING FOR A SOLUTION, WE IMPLEMENTED THE PROJECT OF BIODEGRADABLE WASTE MANAGEMENT”
Pointing out that 55 percent of the wastes stored in the sanitary landfills are biodegradable wastes according to the report announced by the Ministry of Environment and Urbanization, Bölünmez Çankırı concluded, “With the Soil to Soil Biodegradable Waste Management project we implemented, we planned to prevent the waste of vegetable and fruit waste in market places, which is one of the locales with the highest amount of waste. With this project, we not only prevented food waste, but also contributed to the cyclical functioning of the ecosystem by sending food products from the soil back to the soil.
We have obtained 300 tonnes of compost from the wastes collected since the beginning of this year, starting from the market places within the borders of Diyarbakır, Kayapınar Municipality, for the pilot implementation of our project, which we aim to spread throughout Turkey.
Our composts were packaged and distributed to our farmers free of charge as a soil conditioner under the leadership of our District Agriculture Directorate.”
