FOUNDATION OF THE ASSOCIATION
Gıdanın Durumu (The State of Food) Association is a community of thought and research established to examine the state of food in the world and in Turkey in terms of the normative content of the right to food and to propose legal regulations based on the right to food regarding national policies and plans.
The association was founded in September 2023 by Ilkan Turkuresin, Dr. Rabia Ilay Peerzada, Prof. Dr. Hilal Elver, Dr. Ezgi Ediboglu Sakowsky, Dr. Deniz Topcu, Rabia Ersoy, Munevver Temir, and Yasemin Kirec. The group consists of lawyers and people active in agricultural production.
ACTIVITIES
Gıdanın Durumu started its work as a research group in January 2023 before being established as an association.
1. INTERNATIONAL LEGAL FRAMEWORK ON THE RIGHT TO FOOD ESTABLISHED
International treaties, which are one of the primary sources of international law, are binding on states parties. The State of Food has analysed and classified international treaties in terms of the right to food and compiled legislation by collecting what regulations the treaties bring.
The first class of international treaties, which are divided into two classes, are international human rights treaties that recognize the right to food. These treaties are those concluded within the United Nations and the treaties concluded regionally. The second class includes treaties that affect the right to food and the normative content of the right to food, namely, adequacy, availability, accessibility and sustainability, including international environmental and trade treaties and International Labour Organization treaties.
Soft law documents related to the right to food, such as declarations, general comments, guiding principles, and recommendations, have also been classified and added to the prepared international legal legislation. Thus, the international legal sources of the right to food have been established.
The legislation has been published publicly at www.gidanindurumu.com. The texts in the legislation that were not available in Turkish have also been translated into Turkish and published.
2. THEMATIC REPORTS PREPARED BY THE UN SPECIAL RAPPORTEUR ON THE RIGHT TO FOOD TRANSLATED INTO TURKISH
The UN Special Rapporteurship on the Right to Food is the only structure in international law dedicated to the right to food and operating under the umbrella of an international organisation. The Special Rapporteurs on the Right to Food submit annual thematic reports to the Human Rights Council. In addition to being a detailed analysis of the prominent and current issues related to the problem of hunger and malnutrition, these reports serve as a guide to bring these problems to the agenda of the international community and to solve the problems. In order to serve as a basic source for studies on the right to food in Turkey, all reports have been translated into Turkish and an e-book of 960 pages has been created.
3. MEETING ON “URBAN AGRICULTURE AND THE RIGHT TO FOOD” ORGANISED WITH HLPE-FSN
Through Prof. Dr. Hilal Elver, one of the founding members of our association and also a member of HLPE-FSN, the HLPE-FSN 2024 meeting was organised in Istanbul. After the meeting, a session was held with Turkish NGOs working in the fields of agriculture, food, and ecology on 17.04.2024.
During the session, the report titled "Urban Peri-Urban Agriculture" prepared by HLPE-FSN was presented, followed by discussions on urban agriculture practices in Turkey and right to food issues in Turkey. After the discussions, a final report was prepared and shared publicly on social media. You can access the footage of the meeting here.
4. WE ATTENDED TO COP28
Dr. Ezgi Ediboglu Sakowsky, one of the founding members of our association and a researcher at the Max Planck Institute, followed the COP28 process in Dubai. The text titled "Achieving SDG2 without breaching the 1.5C threshold: A Global Roadmap," prepared and presented by FAO during the COP28 process, was translated into Turkish and published by our Association. After the completion of the COP28 process, publications on the process evaluation were prepared with Dr. Ezgi Ediboglu Sakowsky and Prof. Dr. Hilal Elver.
5. WE MADE PRESENTATIONS ON THE RIGHT TO FOOD AT NATIONAL AND INTERNATIONAL MEETINGS
Together with our members, we participated in the "International Congress on Agricultural & Food Ethics" organisedby the Agricultural and Food Ethics Association on 16-17 November 2023 and made presentations on different aspects of the right to food issues in Turkey.
On 01.06.2024, at the meeting titled "Agroecology and Our Rights" organised by the Law, Nature, and Society Foundation together with local producers and non-governmental organisations, the relationship between agroecology and the right to food was explained with a presentation titled "Agroecology and the Right to Food".
Within the scope of the "Right to Food Training Curriculum" prepared by our association, Bugday Association and its volunteers were given training on the right to food and ways to access this right in Turkey on 12.01.2024.
On 18.04.2024 and 07.06.2024, the scope of the right to food, violations in Turkey, and ways of legal struggle against these violations were explained to food engineers at the Istanbul Chamber of Food Engineers.
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