Turkish minister calls luxurious hotels to serve smaller food portions in bid to avoid waste

ANKARA

Turkey’s newly-appointed food, agriculture and livestock minister has called luxurious hotels to slash their food portions in a bid to avoid waste as more than 800 million people face hunger and malnutrition across the world.

Speaking in Ankara at the inauguration ceremony on July 25 for the second phase of Turkey’s agricultural partnership program with the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), Ahmet Eşref Fakıbaba said that the world population was expected to hit 10 billion by 2050. 

“In today’s world, nearly 800 million people face hunger and malnutrition across the globe. Global peace cannot be maintained unless food security is ensured. Some 1.3 billion tons of 4 billion tons of total food output are wasted every year,” he said, adding that luxurious hotels serve unnecessarily large portions of food.

“We can barely consume half of them. As an M.D., I have urged all to shrink their food portions since I have started to work at the ministry. Luxurious hotels must especially do this,” the minister added.

Meanwhile, Turkey will contribute $20 million in the second phase of its partnership program with the FAO, Fakıbaba also said at the meeting.

“Turkey offered $10 million in the first phase, which was used for 28 projects launched in the Central Asian countries,” he said.

It agreed to enter the second phase in the program in 2014.

Vladimir Rakhmanin, assistant director-general and regional representative for Europe and Central Asia in the U.N. agency, thanked Turkey for its continuous support to promote food security and agricultural development in the region. 

He said that during the second phase of the program, Turkey’s experiences in the sector will be shared with other countries in the region. 

Rakhmanin added Turkey shows an annual 5 percent growth in agricultural production, making it one of the largest agricultural producers in the world.  

He said that in the second phase of the program, due to end in 2020, they will promote sustainable development.        

The program includes projects on conservation agriculture, food safety, empowering rural women, nursery development, agricultural productivity, soil carbon mapping, seed development, cattle production improvement and responsible fisheries management. 

Countries benefiting from the program are Azerbaijan, Kyrgyzstan, Kazakhstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, as well as Turkey.