Mehmet Hanifi GULEL / IZMIR FAO Turkey draws attention to food by supporting women’s cooperatives in rural areas with the theme of ‘Leaving No One Behind’ on 16 October World Food Day. FAO Turkey, which has started to support cooperatives directly since 2019, has been supporting 22 women’s cooperatives in 13 cities during this time. One of the supported cooperatives is the Orange Hands Agricultural Development Cooperative located in İzmir Gümüldür. The cooperative, which was established in 2018 and has 12 female partners, acts with the goal of producing healthy, clean food with a long shelf life, and zero waste by transforming the geographically indicated Gümüldür Satsuma Mandarin fruit grown in Gümüldür and Özdere into a value-added product. Another is Salihli Women’s Initiative Production and Business Cooperative, which was founded in 2019 by 9 founding women and has 21 female members in Manisa Salihli. The majority of its members are university graduates and professional women. The cooperative prioritizes increasing the variety of services and products in the district in terms of arts, tourism, agriculture and agricultural products, and their local, national and international sales and marketing. In addition to the machinery and equipment support needed to the cooperatives, FAO Turkey provided the necessary services and equipment for corporate identity, training program, entrepreneurship, business development, cooperative training, e-commerce, digitalization, packaging. Noting that they have started to support cooperatives directly since 2019, FAO Deputy Representative of Turkey Ayşegül Selışık said that all supported cooperatives were cooperatives that were established under the leadership of women and programmed their work. Stating that they primarily support the cooperatives in training and business development practices on the subjects they need, Selışık said, “In addition, we also provide machinery, equipment and raw material support according to the needs. We are working to ensure that all the cooperatives we support in sales and marketing are on a common digital platform. We support the digitalization of cooperatives and their branding with new generation vehicles. 
8 million TL support has been given to date
Selışık stated that due to the priority of the program, cooperatives led by women were identified and visits were made, and that they prepared a training program as a result of the needs assessments during the visits. Explaining that the most applied trainings are organization, involvement in decision-making processes, governance, financial management, social media management, visibility planning, digitalization and e-commerce, Selışık said that in addition to the trainings, modifications, machinery, equipment, raw materials, He stated that they were supported in design, branding, networking, marketing and sales. Selışık said, “As FAO Turkey, we have provided in-kind and indirect support of approximately 8 million TL. We continue to work to make this program more effective and larger. We are currently planning what will be done within the scope of this upcoming program. “As FAO, we will do our best to support rural women and help them stand on their own feet.”
Global food loss and waste $1 trillion
Ayşegül Selışık, who also touched upon the factors triggering the food crisis and food waste, said that climate change, conflicts, economic slowdowns, income inequalities and international tensions, as well as all elements of food security, in other words, the availability of quality and nutritious food, access to these foods and their purchasing power negatively. highlighted as key factors. Selışık said, “As long as the aforementioned factors continue to exist, the food crisis should be expected to deepen” and added: “One of our biggest tools in ending hunger is to prevent waste and food loss. The amount of food waste and loss worldwide is 1.3 billion tons per year. This amount corresponds to one third of the total food produced in the world. Globally, the economic cost of food loss and waste reaches $1 trillion. 40% of losses in developing countries occur at the harvesting and processing levels. In developed countries, 40% of the loss occurs at the retail and consumer level. Food loss and waste is a global problem and its solution requires effort at the national, regional and global levels, respectively.”