President Erdoğan: We can neither talk about peace, tranquility nor prosperity in a world where food waste increases.

President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan sent a video message to the "World Food Forum Opening Ceremony".

Wishing that the World Food Forum, organized with the theme "Innovate today, feed tomorrow", will be beneficial for humanity, Erdoğan thanked all stakeholders, especially the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization, who contributed to the organization of the Forum.

Erdoğan said, "We are concerned about leaving a livable world to future generations in critical areas such as climate change, environmental protection and food security. While we are witnessing the struggle for survival of millions who cannot find dry bread on the one hand, and on the other hand, we can talk about neither peace, tranquility nor prosperity in a world where food waste increases. Based on this fact, as Turkey, we see access to safe food not only as a matter of supply but as the basic element of our national security, and we are taking steps in this direction. We have established the understanding that sees blessings as values, as our ancestors did. "We are trying to do it." he said.

Stating that according to global reports, the largest share of food waste occurs at home, that is, at the consumer level, by 60 percent, Erdoğan stated that around 1.5 billion tons of food produced in the world every year is lost or wasted.

"We reduced bread waste by 18 percent with our Bread Waste Prevention Campaign"

For this reason, Erdoğan emphasized that they attach particular importance to combating food loss and waste as well as efficiency in production, and continued his words as follows:

"The Protect Your Food, Take Care of Your Table initiative, which we launched in 2020, has made great progress in a very short time. We reduced bread waste by 18 percent through our Bread Waste Prevention Campaign. We contribute to global awareness in this field through the Zero Waste Movement, which was launched 9 years ago under the leadership of my wife Emine Erdoğan. We are planning steps that will turn our experiences into practices during COP 31, which we will organize in Antalya on November 9-20 this year. Again, COP "We aim to bring food security and climate commitments together on a common ground with our Turquoise Connection Initiative during the 31st year."

Reminding that Türkiye, as a country hosting the Central Asia Sub-Regional Office of the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization, announced its candidate for the election of the director general of the organization, Erdogan said that Dr. Erdoğan, who has successfully served as the Minister of Agriculture for many years. He stated that they expected support for Mehdi Eker.

Erdogan wished that the World Food Forum would be successful and that the consultations would be beneficial for all humanity.