TURKEY - TURQUIE - TURQUIA

His Excellency Musa Demirci, Minister for Agriculture and Rural Affairs of the Republic of Turkey

It gives me great pleasure and honour to address this Summit and to extend to all of you the greetings and best wishes of our farmers, fishermen and foresters.

First of all, I would like to express my confidence that under your wise and able guidance, our deliberations will be most successful and that the Summit will reach as expected a positive and constructive outcome.

I am also confident that this Rome Summit will constitute an important milestone in the history of FAO and in our common pursuit for a better and more promising new order in international relations. One thing is sure: millions of people suffering from malnutrition and hunger have great expectations and hopes from this Summit and it is our responsibility to ensure its success which will be at the same time a source of honour and pride for all its participants.

I have also the great pleasure to inform this Summit that, within the framework of the preparatory arrangements for the World Food Summit, senior officials from agricultural ministries of the Republics of Turkey, Azerbaijan, Georgia, Kazakhstan, the Kyrgyz Republic, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan convened in Ankara on October 16 and 17, 1996 and adopted a joint statement which is fully in line with the Declaration to be issued at the end of our Summit. One of the conclusions of the Ankara meeting was that the support of FAO is needed to enhance Turkey's cooperation with neighbouring Caucasian and Central Asian countries in the field of agriculture. I would like, therefore, to reiterate our proposal to use the FAO Office in Ankara as the sub-regional office for the Caucasian and Central Asian countries. (A copy of the Ankara statement has been communicated to the Secretariat for distribution).

Major growing environmental threats to mankind, such as erosion and desertification, over-exploitation of limited natural resources for the sake of short-term benefits deriving from increased foreign trade, degradation and deterioration of ecosystems, depletion of the ozone layer and the ensuing global warming, extinction of endangered species, etc. have at least during the last two decades attracted first the attention and then the concern of the public in our countries. Accordingly, every responsible government is endeavouring to formulate and implement policies aimed at the protection of the environment on the one hand, and on the other at the supply of food in adequate quantity for all. The world, however, is far from achieving these twin objectives and the next century is still under the threat of inadequate food supply and malnutrition.

The right of choosing one's faith, preserving one's future generations, the right of property, intellectual rights and the right of life are all fundamental human rights. The right to food, however, is also absolutely fundamental. It is an integral part of the right to live and therefore is the first and foremost amongst human rights without which others are devoid of any meaning. "Food for All" is therefore an appropriate slogan for the Rome Summit. It is with this conviction that Turkey believes that the Rome Summit constitutes an important opportunity for securing a global consensus and reaching a joint commitment which are needed to implement policies, programmes and strategies which will be conducive to eradicating, or at least substantially decreasing, hunger and malnutrition worldwide.

In this context, Turkey is of the opinion that we should deploy our efforts towards increasing basic food production as well as implementing programmes for, preferably the prevention, if not the control of nutritional and micronutrient deficiencies through a better control of sanitary and hygienic procedures, thus ensuring a sustainable food supply in terms of quantity and quality. To achieve this goal, we should cooperate in taking the necessary measures aimed at preventing waste and protecting animal and plant health which will assist us, if not in eradicating outbreaks of livestock and plant diseases, at least in keeping them under strict control. In our opinion, if waste is prevented together with over-nutrition, then food consumed by six billion people would be enough for an adequate consumption by seven billion people.

My country does not face hunger. Nevertheless, Turkey faces unbalanced nutrition. In order to eradicate this, we are implementing various projects for correcting the wrong consumption habits of our people. As I mentioned before, there is no hunger problem in my country. Our faith condemns those who sleep with a full stomach while their neighbours are hungry. It is with this conviction, and considering not only the amazing and admirable progress achieved recently in communications systems, and remembering also that we live in a world which has shrunk as a result of globalization, we believe that all of us should feel responsible when people die of hunger. It is with this faith, that we hope that once our various production and irrigation projects are completed, not only shall we ensure a better nutrition for our expanding population, but we shall also be able to supply other countries in need more than ever before.

As our own experience also confirms, education plays a very important role in the eradication of malnutrition and hunger. The better rural people are educated, the more they produce. Our experience also indicates that the preparation of nutrition maps for all regions of a country contributes greatly to the elaboration of educational programmes intended for people living in rural areas.

I am sure we would all agree that sound and applicable food policies are needed for sustainable food security and that the basis of food security starts with realistic animal and plant production policies.

Food security is an integral part of the chain of global development, which begins at household level and ends up in the international community. In other words, in order to obtain food security, rural development should be achieved and this should start at the family level, including women.

Adhering fully to these principles, Turkey is ready to join the Rome Declaration and is prepared to endorse the Plan of Action attached to it.

On this occasion I would like to draw your attention to the fact that the 11th World Forestry Congress will be held from 13 to 22 October 1997 in Antalya, a beautiful town on our Mediterranean coast. We do hope that this Congress will be a golden opportunity to exchange and share knowledge and experience in the field of forestry, and therefore to formulate commonly acceptable solutions to improve forestry structures and the welfare of the rural community, which in their turn will provide an essential contribution to food security.

To conclude, I would like, on behalf of my Government and on my own behalf, to extend our heartfelt warm congratulations to FAO, its untiring Director-General and its hard-working Secretariat for all the efforts they have deployed for the holding of this extraordinary Summit. I would also like to associate myself with those heads of delegations who stated before me that the follow-up action is even more important than the holding of the Summit. Turkey is considering very favourably the proposals made for ensuring a speedy implementation of the Plan of Action and has noted with great satisfaction that FAO will be given a major role in this context.