Minister of Municipality and Environment H E Abdullah bin Abdulaziz bin Turki Al Subaie with other officials during the opening of Mazzraty poultry farm, yesterday.
Minister of Municipality and Environment (MME) H E Abdullah bin Abdulaziz bin Turki Al Subaie said yesterday that the Ministry is working to launch a number of projects soon to ensure food security in the country in the field of poultry, dairy, fish and fodder production.
H E the Minister was speaking at the opening ceremony of the Mazzraty poultry farm, set up by the National Group for Agricultural and Animal Products at a cost of QR412m in an area of two million square metres with a capacity of 7 million chickens annually.
H E the Minister lauded the investment in such projects which help achieve self-sufficiency in agriculture and livestock sectors adding that the Ministry is keen to provide all types of support to the investors in the projects of livestock and agriculture. He pointed out that there are other similar projects planned to be implemented in the future.
H E the Minister added that the percentage of self-sufficiency of vegetables in Qatar has reached 24 percent, and it is expected to reach 70 percent over the next five years, while the self-sufficiency of the production of fresh chicken and dairy products has reached 100 percent.
H E the Minister said that “Mazzraty” project is a model for investing in such vital and important sector, especially as the project has been implemented and designed with the highest quality in its various components and technical details.
Head of the Animal Wealth Department at the Ministry Eng. Abdulaziz Al Zeyara said that Mazzraty is one of the successful projects in country’s food security plan, pointing out that similar other initiatives will be announced during the upcoming AgriteQ.
The total number of livestock in Qatar is over 1.59 million heads, of which 1 million are sheep and 400,000 are goats. ِAl Zeyara said the self-sufficiency rate of the country in the production of table eggs reached to the advanced stage and the result will be announced in Qatar’s 7th International Agricultural Exhibition (AgriteQ) to be held next week.
CEO of Qatar Development Bank (QDB) Abdulaziz bin Nasser Al Khalifa said the project is one of the public-private partnership projects and represents an important focus in the mechanisms of supporting food security in Qatar. He added that the bank has specialized funding programs for each farm, in addition to its support to livestock farms as part of its strategy to achieve food security.
Chairman of National Group for Agriculture and Animal (Mazzraty) Abdulrahman Hamad Al Manie said the project was established with a cost of QR412m and spreads over an area of 2 million square meters, and will produce 7 million chicken annually in the first phase, thus achieving self-sufficiency of broiler chickens.
It is an integrated project as it contains a feed processing unit with a production capacity of 175,000 tonnes per year, a complete automatic processing unit with a capacity of 6,000 birds per hour and hatchery.
