In Nilüfer, many activities are carried out with themes such as “Year of Agriculture”, “Year of Food”, or “Year of Climate”, in order to increase production and create awareness of healthy food. Nilüfer also works to raise awareness on issues such as the climate crisis and food crisis that are on the world agenda. In this vision, Nilüfer Municipality has become a signatory to the Milan Urban Food Policy Pact (MUFPP).
The Milan Urban Food Policy Pact
The Milan Urban Food Policy Pact focuses on the role of cities in developing sustainable food systems and promoting healthy eating, while sharing good practices in this field with the world. With the aim of reaching the United Nations 2030 Sustainable Development Goals, cities from different parts of the world take measures for sustainable development and against food waste and hunger.
Initiated by the Municipality of Milan in 2015, local governments that signed the Milan Urban Food Policy Pact make a 7-point commitment and declare that they will do so in the 37-item Urban Food Policy Framework.
Nilüfer’s part in the food system transformation
Nilüfer Municipality has the privilege of being the only municipality from Turkey participating in the project “Fostering the Urban food System Transformation through Innovative Living Labs Implementation” (FUSILLI). Within FUSILLI, Nilüfer has planned 48 actions over the course of the project until the end of 2024 in five areas of the food system: governance, production & processing, distribution, consumption, and food waste management. Signing the MUFPP is one of such actions Nilüfer set out to achieve. These actions will all contribute to the transformation of the food system in Nilüfer. Citizens in 64 neighborhoods in Nilüfer participate in the food system transformation processes by engaging the already existing citizen council participation model.
Nilüfer’s Mayor Turgay Erdem by Municipality of Nilüfer
It is also possible to see that the outputs of the FUSILLI project, “Year of Agriculture, Year of Food and Year of Climate” overlap with the Urban Food Policy Framework in the MUFPP. Thus, just like other cities involved in FUSILLI have done, Nilüfer Municipality’s signatory in the MUFPP can bring synergistic benefits to both projects.
Stating that all these projects aim to increase the sustainability of cities, Nilüfer’s Mayor Turgay Erdem said:
“As a signatory of the Milan Urban Food Policy Pact; we have declared that we will work to develop sustainable food systems, healthy food policies, and projects for food supply and distribution, equality, food production, education, food safety, waste reduction and waste prevention in Nilüfer. These are the issues that we care about and that are in our work plan. According to the United Nations’ Global Hunger Report, 10% of the world’s population suffers from hunger. It is stated that the number of people suffering from hunger has increased by 46 million in the last year. 149 million children suffer from growth retardation due to malnutrition. Together, we have seen how the pandemic and wars affect access to food. Global food prices have increased, and access to food has become more difficult when there are disruptions in food chains. In the end, it reminded us that foreign-dependency can leave us face-to-face with famine and that we should be self-sufficient by turning to production. Everyone should realize this and turn to production. As a local government, we try to do our part. We both support production and try to raise awareness. These efforts will continue to increase”.