Minister of Food, Agriculture and Livestock Mr. Faruk Çelik attended Agroexpo Eurasia – 11th International Fair on Agriculture and Animal Husbandry in İzmir. In the opening of fair, Mr. Çelik stated that fairs bring all agricultural developments together with farmers and producers and thanked to all those who contributed to the event.
Referring to the importance of agriculture, Minister Çelik reported that agriculture covers 5 percent of global income corresponding to 77 trillion dollars in the world and 40 percent of world population earns its living from agriculture.
Mr. Çelik added that 5 billion hectares of area in the world is arable land, however; only 28 percent of this area is used for agriculture. As a result, 2 billion people in the world suffer from hunger and poverty.
Food lack causes social conflicts in various areas of world and therefore, people prefer to emigrate risking their own lives. If you own a phone but bread, you do not have a chance to live. If you own bread but phone, you could survive. In this point of view, the past century got behind as the century of petroleum wars. However, we are facing with struggles for getting food today. We confront with great dangers. As the director of World Bank says, wars are real, wars will be experienced, and the following wars will be made for agriculture and food. Despite this, both our country and the world are unfortunately destroying agricultural lands.
Referring to the importance of conscious practices and technological developments in agriculture sector, Minister Çelik talked about decrease of manure in farming practices in the last decade, waste of 1 billion and 300 hundred tons of food in a year and people dying of hunger in Africa and drowning in Mediterranean.
Minister Çelik said that Turkey sent 122 thousand tons of flour to Somali, Pakistan and Palestine in the last decade and 10 thousand tons of flour to Syria. Minister Çelik also talked about price cap in red meat and livestock wealth of Turkey
Following the opening ceremony, Minister Çelik toured the fair area and talked to producers. The ceremony was attended by İzmir Governor Mustafa Toprak, İzmir Mayor Aziz Kocaoğlu, Head of World Beekeeping Union Philip Mccabe, Deputy Minister of Agriculture of Kosovo Vezir Jonuzaj, sectorial representatives, as well as producers and farmers. The fair will be open till February, 14.