President Erdoğan: 'Protect your food, protect your table'

President Erdoğan sent a video message to the 'World Food Forum Opening Ceremony' program. In his message, 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 on the one hand we witness the struggle for survival of millions who cannot find dry bread, on the other hand, we cannot talk about peace, tranquility or 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 value the blessing as our ancestors did. "We are trying to establish a visionary understanding," he said.

'WE PAY IMPORTANCE TO FIGHTING FOOD LOSS AND WASTE'

Stating that, according to global reports, the largest share of food waste occurs at home, at the consumer stage, at a rate of 60 percent, President Erdoğan said, "Around 1.5 billion tons of food produced every year in the world is either lost or wasted. For this reason, we attach particular importance to combating food loss and waste as well as efficiency in production. The 'Save Your Food, Take Care of Your Table' initiative, which we launched in 2020, has made great progress in a very short time. With our bread waste prevention campaign, bread We reduced waste by 18 percent.

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 COP31, which we will organize in Antalya on November 9-20 this year. Again, during COP31, we aim to bring food security and climate commitments together on a common ground with our turquoise connection initiative. As a country that hosts the Central Asia Sub-Regional Office of the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization, we have announced our candidacy for the elections for the director general of the organization. "We are waiting for your support for Mehdi Eker, who has successfully served as the Minister of Agriculture in our country for many years," he said.