Photo:©Bornova İlçe Tarım

İzmir, Turkey – The third technical workshop on “Zero Waste Zero Hunger Project: Support to Reduce Food Loss and Food Waste in Turkey” project was held in the premises of Aegean Exporters' Association today. The workshop was organized by partnership of FAO and the Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry.

The project is a regional extension of ‘SAVE FOOD: Global Initiative on Food Loss and Waste Reduction' project, which was initiated by FAO in 2011. It is aimed at raising public awareness on food loss and waste, and making Turkey the leading country for the issue in international arena by sharing the good practices implemented in Turkey.
To this end, two workshops were held since the beginning of the year. In these workshops, staff from provincial directorates of agriculture as well as representatives from NGOs and private sector gathered to discuss the current food loss and waste situation in Turkey and solution options.
FAO Turkey Programme Officer Sheikh Ahaduzzaman made the opening remarks at the third workshop held with the participation of representatives from private sector, NGOs, and universities:
“As FAO, we have been conducting works to raise awareness about food loss and waste since 2011. We held two workshops in Turkey in cooperation with the Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry. In the workshops we discussed on what level food loss and waste is in Turkey, how we can measure it more accurately, and how we can reduce it.”
Ahaduzzaman emphasized that their common goals, as FAO and the Ministry, are to address these problems and produce recommendations. He added:
"Today in the third workshop we aim at discussing the global approaches to measure food losses and share up-to-date information on the prevention and reduction of losses.”
“Vast amounts of food are wasted on the way from farm to shelves.”
Aegean Fresh Fruits and Vegetables Exporters Association Chairperson Hayrettin Uçak also made opening remarks. He indicated that products change hands many times between farm and store, and that the amount of losses is significantly high. He stated that it is possible to reduce food loss and waste as seen from the examples around. Uçak said:
“One of our exporter friends reduced their loss rate from 13% to 5% in a short time by means of small adjustments in the process. Therefore, it is possible. I hope that this project will pave the way to eliminate losses.”
“Together with FAO, we are preparing a national strategy and an action plan on food loss and waste.”
Deputy Director-General for EU & Foreign Relations of the Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry Volkan Güngören spoke next:
“One in every nine people goes to bed hungry each night. When we look closer, we can see that this hunger is caused by unfair distribution rather than inadequate production. However, population estimates for the next 30 years show that the production will not be enough to feed the world even with a fair distribution. Therefore, we brought up the issue of food loss and waste for discussion at the G20 Summit in 2015. We created a platform for reducing and measuring food loss and waste.”
Güngören spoke about the Zero Waste Zero Hunger project they conduct with FAO in order to revive the platform:
“As a result of discussions with many stakeholders, we prepared a national strategy document and an action plan. It will be announced with the SAVE FOOD Campaign, which we will start next year as part of the project. With the works to be conducted before and after the campaign, we will be able to accurately measure our baseline situation and our progress.”
The workshop continued with presentations made by Camelia Bucatariu, FAO Global Food Waste and Policy expert and international consultant for the Zero Waste Zero Hunger: 'Support to Reduce Food Loss and Food Waste in Turkey' Project, and Prof. Erdoğan Güneş, lecturer at Ankara University.
“The national strategy document we prepared with Turkey will contribute to better understanding of the issue globally.”
FAO Global Food Waste and Policy expert Camelia Bucatariu stated in their presentation that Turkey became part of the global food loss and waste database developed by FAO within the scope of the Sustainable Development Goal 12.3.
“We prepared a national strategy document and an action plan in cooperation with the Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry and all the other relevant ministries, private sector, civil society, and universities. Therefore, Turkey will contribute to better understanding of the issue globally.”
“We can manage what we can measure”
Ankara University lecturer Prof. Erdoğan Güneş emphasized that food losses affect not only the producer and the consumer, but also national economy. He stated that different institutions and organizations all over the globe currently work on the issue. He also stated that the rates of loss in agriculture as well as plant and animal production are measured with various researches without a specific, standard methodology.
“For this reason, we are not able to make an accurate comparison among countries. We can manage something if we can accurately measure it. We need to place emphasis on agricultural training and R&D works in this process. We should pay strict attention to infrastructure problems in production as well as post-harvest handling, packaging, distribution, and processing, and establish technical rules.”