Izmir, Turkey - FAO and the Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry of Republic of Turkey assembled the concluding workshop of the “Zero Waste Zero Hunger: Support to Awareness Raising on Food Loss and Waste” project, which was implemented under the FAO’s SAVE FOOD Initiative on Food Loss and Waste Reduction in Europe and Central Asia. Representatives from private sector, academia and business associations gathered in Izmir to discuss the recent developments with regard to food loss and waste reduction in Turkey, including the development of a national strategy.

The Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry of the Republic of Turkey prioritized the prevention and reduction of food losses and waste at national level in the context of mitigation and adaptation to the climate change, while ensuring food and nutrition security, as envisaged by the 2030 Agenda. To this end, some targeted measures were undertaken, including the establishment of a G20 Technical Platform on the Measurement and Reduction of Food Loss and Waste, launch of a Bread Waste Campaign and implementation of a technical project “Zero Waste, Zero Hunger: Support to Awareness Raising on Food Loss and Waste” in 2019. The latter also comprised a series of workshops that informed the drafting process of a National Strategy on Food Loss and Waste Reduction in Turkey.

In his opening speech, Sheikh Ahaduzzaman, Programme Officer FAO Turkey, emphasized that FAO had addressed the issue of food loss and waste as early as in 2011. “This year, in cooperation with the Ministry, we organized two workshops aimed to examine the scope of food loss and waste in Turkey. At this final workshop we will study the world’s best practices in food loss and waste measurement and consider the most efficient approaches to curbing the issue”, Ahaduzzaman added.

Ahmet Volkan Güngören, Deputy Director General for EU and Foreign Relations at the Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry, said that a multi-disciplinary and multi-stake-holder approach was taken to design a national strategy and an action plan on food loss and waste reduction. He added, “Both, the strategic document and an action plan are expected to be presented under a forthcoming “SAVE YOUR FOOD” Campaign in 2020”.

Following the opening speeches, the workshop continued with the presentations of Camelia Bucatariu, International Consultant for FAO, and Erdoğan Güneş, Professor at the Ankara University and the Project National Consultant.

Bucatariu updated the workshop participants on the regional and global approaches to measure food losses and shared some good practices for its prevention and reduction.

Erdoğan Güneş, professor of Ankara University concluded, “What we can measure, we will be able to manage”.