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Doha: The Ministry of Municipality has said that the commercial agricultural projects, launched under National Strategy for Food Security (2018-23), are expected to contribute an increase in income of agricultural sector of the country by more than QR300m.
In 2021, as many as 11 projects and a number of initiatives were launched to boost agricultural, livestock and fish production in the country to ensure food security, said the Ministry in a report.
The report ‘Progress Made in Food Security Sector of Qatar During 2021’ was shared on social networking sites of the Ministry. Since the launch of the strategy, the contribution of agricultural sector to GDP also increased significantly, the report said.
The Ministry said that a partnership with Qatar Free Zones Authority began for enhancing cooperation and building a business block for advanced agricultural technology and food industry in the country’s free zones, by attracting foreign investments and advanced technologies.
It is also providing the necessary support to producers and developing supportive policies to ensure the continuity of commercial activities in the agricultural sector.
The Ministry is also running programmes for marketing local products and providing different types of services to local farms encouraging them to increase production.
The National Food Security Strategy (2018-23) aims to develop the agricultural sector and to expand and enhance the commercial activities of food production.
This is through developing policies to support the private sector with investment incentives creating opportunities to build projects to ensure food security.
To encourage the private sector to come forward in ensuring food security, the Ministry of Municipality has offered investment opportunities to the private sector through public-private partnership programme.
The projects will help raise self-sufficiency rates of the country in fresh food production and reduce the costs of importing foodstuff from international markets, in addition to raising the contribution of the agricultural sector to the GDP.
Efforts continue to update Qatar’s food security policies and strategies, as well as through the national dialogues that were launched last year on the Food System Summit.
The Ministry is constantly enhancing food security in Qatar by adopting a number of measures including, reducing food loss and waste in the supply chain, improving production capacity and encouraging year-round production to deal with the critical summer months and incorporating environmentally-sensitive production methods.
To ensure the food security, among major developments are expansion and modernisation of the logistical infrastructure in the country’s ports and warehouses, establishment of strategic storage reserves of wheat and rice commodities and increasing the reserve stocks of a wide range of basic foodstuffs in the country’s retail stores.
