Adil Al Kaldi, Assistant Director of the Agricultural Affairs Department at the Ministry of Municipality and Environment, Al Nubi Salem Al Marri, Director General of QTFA, Ali Ahmad Saad Al Kaabi, owner of Global Farm for Agricultural Supplies and Mohamed
DOHA: To promote local agricultural products, the Ministry of Municipality and Environment represented by the Agricultural Affairs Department yesterday launched ‘Qatari Potatoes Festival’ at Lulu Hypermarkets at Al Gharrafa.
The three-day event of the exclusive product launch of Qatari potatoes being organised by the Ministry of Municipality and Environment in collaboration with Arab Qatari Agricultural Production Company (QTFA) to provide all-time-high demand vegetable, potatoes, to the consumers at competitive prices.
The festival is part of a programme of the Ministry to provide platforms to local farmers to market their products at major shopping complexes. The festival is being organised within the initiatives launched by the Ministry to support to local farms to increase the products in a bid to achieve self-sufficiency in agricultural production, said Adil Al Kaldi, Assistant Director of the Agricultural Affairs Department at the Ministry.
Speaking to the media on the sideline of the event, Al Kaldi said that so far four local farms are producing potatoes and some more farms are intended to begin producing potatoes. He said that the local farmland and climate are favourable to produce potatoes.
Regarding the demands of local potatoes, Al Kaldi said that Qatari potatoes are giving tough competition to the imported ones in term of quality and prices.
The production of potatoes at the farms of Arab Qatari Agricultural Production Company (QTFA) reached 2.5 tonnes in a day, said Al Nubi Salem Al Marri, Director General of QTFA.
Speaking on the quality of Qatari potatoes, Al Marri said that local products are better than various varieties of imported potatoes. He said that the experience of QTFA in producing potatoes is encouraging other farmers to produce potatoes as this vegetable was not earlier on the priority list of Qatari farms.
Regarding the harvest, Al Marri said that the company produced about 20 to 30 tonnes of potatoes in a hector that is an average compared to other countries of the world. He noted potato production is not expensive as it required less work force.
Local agricultural products are on high demand at Lulu Hypermarkets as currently the share of local agricultural products at the market increased to about 75 percent, said Mohamad Rashid Al Hashmi, Manager of Lulu Hyper Market, Al Gharrafa branch.
“We received 676 tonnes farm fresh local vegetables including tomatoes, cucumbers, cabbages, egg plants and capsicums among many others during past two months,” said Al Hashmi.
Regarding the local potatoes, Al Hashmi said that Lulu Hypermarkets offered three tonnes of Qatari potatoes at competitive prices, which is attracting pretty good number of customers due to better quality.
