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The direct government financial support to agriculture sector worth QR70m per year has helped enhance local production at a fast pace to ensure food security in the country.
“The direct government support provided by the Ministry of Municipality valuing QR70m annually and provision of facilities by Qatar Development Bank (QDB) have led to increase in local production including vegetables, poultry, meat products, table eggs and fish,” said Director of the Food Security Department Dr. Masoud Jarallah Al Marri. He was speaking to Qatar Radio yesterday about country's food security.
Dr. Al Marri said Qatar National Food Security Strategy 2018-23 identified the challenges facing country in the field of food security.
“Based on the challenges, the policies and strategies were devised to increase local products, provision of strategic storage, diversifying sources of import and developing marketing mechanism,” said Dr. Al Marri.
About Qatar’s self-sufficiency rate in fresh foods, he said the Ministry has set targets to increase production of certain fresh food items to a certain level by 2023.
“Under the plan so far, we have become 21 percent self-sufficient in producing red meat and target to increase self-sufficiency in red meat to 30 percent by 2023,” said Dr. Al Marri.
He said last year the Ministry of Municipality floated tenders of 10 projects to private sectors to fatten livestock to achieve the production target in coming years.
“The self-sufficiency rate in producing table eggs reached about 50 percent. To achieve the set target of 70 percent, a number of projects are under construction which will start production by the end of 2022, increasing the self-sufficiency rate of the country to 65 percent.”
He said some more projects will be launched in the coming year to meet the target of 70 percent. “Qatar has already become self-sufficient in production of fresh chicken and milk.”
To enhance fish production to the targeted level, he said fish farming projects are producing different types of fish.
“The Ministry of Municipality through its Aquatic Research Center at Ras Matbakh will provide baby fish of Hamour, Shiam and Safi to the fish farming project to increase the production during coming years,” said Dr. Al Marri.
He said a fund has been allocated for food security research in cooperation with Qatar Foundation through a joint committee.
“The research works will focus on basic four points of food security such as increasing local production of food items, indentifying the challenges in this regards like developing greenhouses, advanced irrigation system, production methodologies and post production, advanced technologies for long-term storage and recycling, developing local market and supply chain,” said Dr. Al Marri.
