Turkish Minister of Agriculture and Forestry, Bekir Pakdemirli made a quick start to his new post. Taking briefings from various institutions in order to ascertain problems of the sector, Minister Pakdemirli attended the G20 Agriculture Ministers’ Summit held in Buenos Aires, the capital of Argentina.
Turkish Minister of Agriculture and Forestry Bekir Pakdemirli, attended the G20 Agriculture Ministers’ Summit organized in the capital of Argentina, Buenos Aires. Pakdemirli conducted some bilateral meetings as well as attending the events held within the scope of the summit. Evaluating The G20 Agriculture Ministers’ Summit, Minister Pakdemirli said he will support the activities towards increasing the export of agricultural products to Latin American countries and added, “Although the Latin American countries are distant in geographical terms, the shipping prices with regard to this area decreased due to the economic slowdown in world economy. For this reason, we have to chase the opportunities in commodities mutually. These markets are not far from Turkey anymore. In this sense, I want our entrepreneurs to come here more than the past. Our offices of the commercial counsellor here have a lot to do. We will give all kinds of support with regard to commodities in the countries of this region.”
In his evaluation about the summit, Pakdemirli expressed that the main theme of the 3-day program was “sustainable agriculture and combating desertification”. Ministers and the representatives of relevant institutions from Turkey, Argentina, Australia, Brazil, Canada, China, France, Germany, India, Indonesia, Italy, Japan, S. Korea, Mexico, Russia, Saudi Arabia, S. Africa, United Kingdom, USA and EU.
THIS WASTE REDUCTION CAMPAIGN
SHOULD SET AN EXAMPLE
Pakdemirli said that they made a special emphasize on food security in the meetings held within the framework of the summit. Pointing out that the global population will reach 9.7 billion by the year 2050, Pakdemirli argued that the agricultural production should increase by fifty percent until that time. The Turkish minister reminded that Turkey has performed exemplary studies on food waste and combating desertification and added, “We presented the Prevention of Bread Waste Campaign which is conducted by our ministry and deemed as an exemplary project. Besides, we stressed the ‘soil’, which was the main theme of this year’s summit. We told what we are doing in order to fight with desertification. We also pointed out that we have increased our forest lands through planting works since the last 15 years. We have assertive claims aiming to plant a tree for each individual living on the Earth by the year 2023. With this aim, our total forest lands will increase by 3o percent. We explained all these studies and expressed that we are expecting similar works from other countries.”
Pakdemirli said he attended several bilateral meetings in the summit. “We held bilateral meetings with EU Agriculture Commissioner, representatives of OECD and FAO, agriculture ministers of Germany, Italy, Canada, Argentina, Spain and the Netherlands. We discussed how to increase our agricultural trading volume and improve agricultural relationships in technical terms,” he said. Pakdemirli declared that Turkey will host “World Day to Combat Desertification and Drought” on 17 June 2019 and invited the representatives of member states to Turkey for this program.