File photo used for representation
Doha, Qatar: Livestock Affairs Department at the Ministry of Municipality is working to set up yards for selling locally produced cattle directly to customers without middlemen, said a top official.
Director of Livestock Affairs Department at the Ministry of Municipality Eng Abdulaziz Al Ziyara has revealed a number of projects to boost further Qatar’s livestock sector which recorded over 1.3 million cattle.
He was speaking to the mediapersons on the sidelines of “A Regional Training Course on the Use of iVetNet to support the implementation and maintenance of the ISO 17025 Standard in Veterinary Laboratories”.
The five-day event is being organised by the Ministry of Municipality in cooperation with the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) in Doha.
This is within the framework of a technical cooperation project with the International Atomic Energy Agency to use modern nuclear techniques in the early and rapid detection of animal diseases and diseases common among humans and animals. Eng Abdulaziz Al Ziyara said that Livestock Affairs Department is implementing a project to develop complex of livestock farms which will see light of the day soon.
“The project include markets for livestock farms (locally called Aswaq Al Adab) and yards for selling locally produced cattle directly to customers without middlemen,” said Al Ziyara. He said that the yards will cover gradually all local livestock farms operating across the country.
“The number of cattle in Qatar reached 1.3 million with majority goats and sheep, followed by 140,000 cows and 100,000 camels,” said Al Ziyara. He said that the Ministry of Municipality in coordination with Ministry of Commerce and Industry took initiatives to increase the production of cattle for commercial purposes. “We will open soon two veterinary clinics in Al Shaml and AbuNakhla offering best services to local livestock farms,” said Al Ziyara. He said that the project aims at developing the infrastructure of veterinary clinics in the country.
“The new clinics will offer a number of services like diagnosing of diseases inside the livestock farms, monitoring the animals’ health and running vaccination programmes for cattle,” said Al Ziyara.
The training course will be lectured by a group of international specialists from the IAEA in the field of animal health, and delegations from 20 different countries in the Middle East and East Asia, in addition to the participating team from the Livestock Department.
The course seeks to benefit from the accumulated experience of the IAEA and its partners around the world and its research and development activities in many fields by harnessing nuclear technologies and technical and scientific support to diagnose diseases, in addition to measures to prevent and respond to them.
The first part of the training course aims to exchange experiences in the fields of animal health, train participants to use the International Veterinary Information Network on the Internet, and benefit from international expertise in diagnosing transboundary animal diseases, methods of treatment and prevention.
The objective of the event also include exchanging opinions and discussing disease cases with many specialists around the world, preparing records of animal diseases and how they spread between countries, and promoting means of preventing them through this network.
