DOHA: The Ministry of Municipality and Environment (MME) is undertaking many initiatives to develop the agricultural sector through providing support to farms and investors.
The agricultural strategy of Qatar endeavours to reduce dependence on imports and achieving self-sufficiency in vegetables and it is based on the expansion plans to produce more agricultural products and other food items including vegetables, dates, red meat, poultry, egg, fish, milk and green fodder.
“There are about 1,200 farms in Qatar (most of them located in the northern areas), among them 300 are active and they are marketing their products in the country. We are working to make most of the farms functional and productive,” said Yousef Al Khulaifi, Director of Agricultural Affairs Department at the MME.
He also said, while speaking to a local TV channel, that the percentage of sufficiency achieved in production of vegetables varied from product to product. “The local production of vegetables represents about 18 percent. Some products have achieved a big percentage and hope by next few years, we will achieve self sufficiency in those kinds of vegetables.” Regarding dates, he said: “Qatar’s production of dates covers 86 percent of the country’s needs.”
Since the siege was imposed on Qatar last year, Qatari farms have increased their produce by more than 100 percent, and over 400 protected houses (shaded agricultural facilities) were also built at a number of farms.
Farhoud Hadi Al Hajri, Director of Animal Wealth Department Ministry of Municipality and Environment, said that there are nine veterinary centres in addition to several other veterinary clinics that provide services to livestock farmers.
For his part, Abdullah Al Sulaitin, one of investors in agricultural sector, said that his farm had produced 700 tonnes of various agricultural products. “Now we are planing to increase the production by more than 1,000 tonnes annually by this season and next season.”
In accordance with Qatar National Vision 2030, Qatar will become almost self-sufficient in some agricultural sectors by 2022. Another official at the Ministry had earlier said that Qatar’s self-sufficiency reached 98 percent in the production of fresh chicken, adding that local vegetables meet big portion of market demand as tomato, cucumber and green chilly were covering 40 percent, 60 percent and 42 percent of Qatar’s total requirement.
After the siege, the Ministry started a number of initiatives addressing the existing obstacles in agricultural field and the production of local vegetables had increased from about 50,000 tonnes during the year before the blockade to about 65,000 tonnes after the blockade. Products such as meat, fish, milk and eggs jumped 400 percent since 2017 compared to the previous year due to state support to the agricultural sector due to the new plans of the Ministry.
