PM supports campaign against waste of bread

ANKARA

Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, DHA photo

Drawing attention to the connection between hunger and food waste, Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan yesterday suggested that it was a responsibility for Turkey to raise global awareness on the issue.

Erdoğan’s remarks came in a speech delivered at a ceremony held for launching of “Campaign for Preventing Waste of Bread.” The ceremony for the campaign initiated by the Food, Agriculture and Livestock Ministry was hosted at facilities of the Union of Chambers and Commodity Exchanges (TOBB).

Currently, 12.5 percent of the world population suffers from inadequate nourishment, Erdoğan said. “Every year, 10 million people are losing their lives due to hunger and inadequate nourishment. This is a very bitter picture. But there is another truth that makes this picture even more bitter: 1.3 billion tons of food are being wasted annually across the world,” he said.

If just a quarter of the 1.3 billion tons of wasted food could be given to those in need these deaths would not happen, he added.

Erdoğan also criticized wasteful expenditure by public institutions, listing figures about the wasting of bread and food in general in order to demonstrate the gravity of the situation economically.

Referring to his recent visit to Gabon, Niger and Senegal, which he had undergone earlier this month, Erdoğan mentioned the “misery, hunger and poverty” that he witnessed on the trip.

Expressing regret that global waste could not be turned into savings in order to be given to suffering people, the prime minister said: “This falls on the shoulders of Turkey and the Turkish people. We have to succeed in this and we have to take this step.”