New farm projects to raise self-sufficiency in vegetables

Doha: The Ministry of Municipality and Environment has sped up efforts to upscale self-sufficiency rate up to 70 percent (year-round) in vegetable production in the next five years.

To achieve the target, the Ministry is working to allot 34 large plots of lands to private companies and import latest farming technologies to increase the production of existing farms.

“We are going to launch a lot of major agricultural projects to increase the local production of vegetables to an average sufficient level,” Masoud Jarullah Al Marri, Executive Secretary of the Committee for Monitoring the Implementation of Food Security Policies in the Pubic and Private Sector of Qatar told The Peninsula. 

He said that as per the plan, ten plots of land stretching to an area of 100,000 sqm each for agricultural purpose had been earmarked. 

“The projects’ documentation work is reaching final stage and we are set to float tenders to 10 private companies for bidding to implement these projects,” said Al Marri. 

He said that these ten projects would meet a target to produce about 22,000 tonnes of vegetables per year to enhance self-sufficiency of the country in vegetable production from existing 30 percent to 40 percent. 

“Special steps and initiatives have been included in the specifications of the projects to ensure the round-the-year production of vegetables.”

 Al Marri said that after implementation of aforesaid 10 projects, another 24 similar agricultural projects would be launched which would help meet about 65 percent demand of vegetables in the local market.

“The local market needs 2, 260,000 tonnes of vegetables in a year. With the implementation of these projects within next five years as per the plan, the self-sufficiency of the country in vegetable production will reach between 60 to 70 percent,” said Al Marri.

He said that the Ministry plans to introduce advanced LED farming technology in Qatar. “This is a promising technology which will help bring radical changes in agriculture sector as the technology will help improve the quality and quantity of products,” said Al Marri.

He said that the new technology is also called closed-door-farming where LED lighting is used in place of sunlight and air-conditioner is used instead of natural ventilation to solve the problem of hot weather during summer. 

The LED farming is one of the most innovative ways of up-scaling the crop production efficiency. For this purpose, artificial lights are evidently a pre-requisite for plant production in no-natural light growing environments. In the absence of sun light, the quality of the light (spectrum) needs to be accentuated to the highest degree. “The project will he launched soon. Under the project, local farmers will be supported to build plant factory or closed door farming using LED technology,” said Al Marri. 

He said that the research works will be conducted under the project for the development of closed-door-farming. “The result of the project will be shared with local farmers because they cannot take risk for using any new technology until they are sure that it is useful and suitable for local climate,” said Al Marri.

He said that the government is responsible to bring such technologies and conduct experiments and encourage private sector to adopt. “Now we are preparing the specification of LED farming technology and the project will be launched in this year,” said Al Marri.

He said that since the local agricultural products are part of the national strategy for food security, so it is required from agricultural sector represented by Agricultural Research Department at the Ministry to bring about solutions for local agricultural products. “The Qatar National Food Security Programme (QNFSP) focuses basically on four points; local production of those products which can be produced in Qatar using indigenous available resources, strategic reserve of food products which are not possible to be produced in the country due to climate,” said Al Marri.