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Qatar National Food Security Strategy 2023-30, which is mulling extending the strategic food reserve period and to set new goals of self-sufficiency in food production to deal with emerging challenges in the way of ensuring food security, will be launched in March, according to a top official.
“Now we are developing a new strategy as the existing strategy has ended. Food Security Strategy 2023-30 will be issued in March 2023 with complete data following the targets during coming years,” said the Director of the Food Security Department at the Ministry of Municipality Dr. Masoud Jarallah Al Marri.
Speaking to Qatar TV recently, he said that the new strategy will focus on new issues according to the current situation. The previous strategy gave top priorities to increasing local food production and strategic food reserve as per the need of that time.
“Now we have successfully achieved self-sufficiency at certain levels in food production and ensured strategic food reserve so now the situation is different from those in 2017 when the first strategy was launched,” said Al Marri.
He said that Food Security Strategy 2023-30 will focus on how to maintain these achievements and make improvements to meet the challenges caused by the new developments in the world like the impact of climate change on the food production of exporting countries and conflicts.
“These developments might require revising the issue of strategic food reserve which is six months at present to extend further to ensure the food security of the country following the developments in the World,” said Al Marri.
Likewise, he said, local food production, might require setting new targets for increasing self-sufficiency rate of certain fresh foods to serve the purpose of food security.
“Our ambition is to be among the top 15 countries out of 113 countries of the world listed in the Global Food Security Index,” said Al Marri. Qatar secured first place among Arab countries and 24th place in a ranking of 113 countries in the Global Food Security Index (GFSI) 2021, issued by UK- based the Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU).
Speaking about local food production, he said that the strategy aimed at producing certain types of fresh perishable food commodities locally. For example, he said: “We produce basic vegetables, not all types, such as tomato, cucumber, capsicum, eggplant, zucchini and leafy vegetables.”
He said that Qatar’s self-sufficiency in vegetables increased from 20 percent in 2017 to 46 percent in 2022, however, the strategy targets to achieve 70 percent. “Local fresh milk production rose from 28 percent of total demand in 2017 to 100 percent in 2022. Self-sufficiency in meat production reached 20 percent out of 30 percent targeted by the strategy as the consumer pattern of the country is 30 percent fresh meat and 70 percent frozen which is dependent on import,” said Al Marri.
He said that the Ministry of Municipality in coordination with private companies launched several projects for increasing livestock with a capacity of 5,000 animals from each project which will help greatly in meeting the target.
Speaking about fish, he said that self-sufficiency in fish production was recorded at 77 percent. “The target is to increase the production to 95 percent. The first fish farming project was launched with a capacity of 2,000 tonnes of fish in a year,” said Al Marri.
He said that two more projects are in the pipeline which will be implemented after the success of the first project.
“The total production of three projects will be 6,000 tonnes a year. As many as 15,000 tonnes of fish are being produced from sea,” said Al Marri.
Speaking about grains, he said that the strategy focused on providing grains through ensuring a diversified source of import and long-term strategic reserve because it is difficult to produce in Qatar due to the unfavorable climate for such products.
“Under the strategy, agreements were signed, and partnerships were made with more than one country for diversifying the source of import to ensure supply chains during a crisis like COVID-19 pandemic,” said Al Marri.
As per the strategy, he said: “We should have three to five sources of import for each commodity with 35 percent dependence on one source as maximum.”
