Challenges

Qatar has harsh natural conditions (high temperatures and high humidity), which are not conducive to a productive agriculture sector; therefore, most of its agricultural supply came from international partners. The current blockade created further problems for the sector in terms of achieving self-sufficiency. Since many Middle Eastern and African countries suffer from aridness and semi-aridness, agriculture and livestock activities are significantly hampered, with food production constantly at risk, especially with rising climate-change concerns.

Toward a Solution

The Government of Qatar established a food security department especially for the coordination of food and nutrition efforts, expanding the production of fruits and vegetables and creating a dairy and poultry market from scratch. A food security crisis generated a myriad of agricultural solutions through the use of science and the convergence of public and private efforts. The Government opened a space for a business-led food security initiative, with the Qatarat Agricultural Development Company (QADCO) in the vanguard; the work is directed mainly to the reclamation of tracts of land, the desalinization of water and the overall increase in productivity.

FAO supported the project by providing  technical assistance to enable Qatar to shape the Qatar National Food Security Programme, with a focus on strategic planning, enhanced agricultural and fisheries productivity and development, conservation and sustainable management of natural resources, and environmental protection. The country’s national methodology is based on four elements: (a) guaranteeing that the local production uses the least possible amount of water and electricity by using modern technology; (b) strategic storage; (c) using international trade and logistics services in a way that makes it possible to secure the diversification of food supply sources; and (d) managing the local market by offering customers high-quality food items at fair and reasonable prices. .

With FAO assistance, Qatar has improved its food production to supply 25 per cent of its local market – although the idea was to increase the supply to 70 per cent – through 10 projects offered to investors to cultivate vegetables in greenhouses, producing around 21,000 tonnes of vegetables every year. In poultry production, too, the country has made significant advances, increasing its output from 11,000 tonnes in 2017 to 22,000 tonnes annually, achieving 100 per cent self-sufficiency in this area.[1] In the area of egg production, the Government has announced a total of 8 projects to produce eggs on local farms, with the aim of increasing self-sufficiency from 28 per cent to 70 per cent.

The initiative has a South-South component embedded in the FAO and Qatar efforts at sharing know-how with other Middle Eastern countries in similar conditions such as Egypt and Jordan to contribute to food security in the region and subregion. FAO helped the World Bank to develop a study entitled The Grain Chain: Managing Wheat Resources in the Arab Countries, which included Qatar as a role model and which was presented to the Governments in the region that participated in its formulation.