For any country, providing enough food, shelter, water and ensuring good health and security for its people is the most important priority, as it is the most fundamental yardstick to measure the efficiency of governance. Qatar has fast emerged as a model in ensuring food security for its citizens and residents.
The Minister of Commerce and Industry H E Ali bin Ahmed Al Kuwari had said that Qatar has been able to achieve high levels of self-sufficiency in various agricultural products and to establish a strategic stockpile of food items. The self-sufficiency of dairy products has increased 27 percent to 106 percent and the production of fresh poultry rose from 49 percent to 123 percent in two years. During discussion on The Role of Development in Achieving National Sovereignty at the Kuala Lumpur Summit 2019 in Malaysia, H E the Minister said that Qatar’s investments in the food industries sector have increased 126 percent to QR5.2bn in 2019 compared to 2.3bn in 2016.
This shows the keenness of the wise leadership of the country in ensuring food security through encouraging local production of essential food items. The statistics shows the efficiency of the governance, which not only ensure enough food products for domestic consumption, but also has reached a point where the country is gearing up to export some of the products to regional and international markets.
For a country like Qatar, which is known as an arid desert land with very limited availability of arable land and natural fresh water, local production of enough food for the whole country can be a Herculean task. But when we look at the development in the recent past in the country, it is evident that nothing is impossible for Qatar under its visionary leadership. Being one of the fastest growing economies in the world, Qatar is facing a large-scale influx of expatriate workers resulting in tremendous increase in population in recent years, which can put more pressure on food availability if not met with advanced planning.
Food security means creating a condition in which everybody has a physical and economic access to safe, adequate and nutritious food at all times to satisfy their daily calorific intake which allows the people to lead an active and healthy life.
Qatar has set up a working mechanism to take advantage of its advanced infrastructure and strategic location to propel its food production. The best example of this effort is Baladna Food Industries, which is one of the most successful national ventures on an industrial level, which was able to meet the local demand for dairy products in a very short span of time.
The state is fast becoming self-sufficient in vegetables, fish and other essential commodities and the country is also expanding its green land areas with ambitious efforts to plant more trees.
