The first National Food Security Strategy 2018-23 has succeeded in meeting its goals, remarkably increasing Qatar’s self-sufficiency rate in fresh food, including vegetables, dairy, poultry, meat and fish. The strategy also contributed greatly to Qatar securing first place in Arab countries and 24th place in a ranking of 13 countries on the Global Food Security Index 2021 by UK-based the Economist Intelligence Unit.
Qatar attaches great importance to food security through boosting local production, creating strategic food stocks and diversifying the import of food commodities.
Now the Food Security Department of the Ministry of Municipality has started work on developing the second National Food Security Strategy 2023-2030.
Reducing food waste is one of the major objectives of the National Food Security Strategy. The country is also working in cooperation with the United Nations Environment Programme to launch a study to measure food waste in Qatar. Based on the results of this study, policies, plans and programmes for reducing food waste will be prepared to preserve the country’s natural resources and to further increase self-sufficiency in basic food commodities.
Qatar seeks to achieve self-sufficiency in production of food commodities through optimal utilisation of natural resources such as the land and groundwater. The Ministry of Municipality is keen to raise productivity of Qatari farms by the use of modern agricultural technology. The country made remarkable progress in self-sufficiency in fresh foods production, including vegetables, livestock and fish in 2022. Many projects were launched by the Ministry of Municipality to increase the production of local vegetables and table eggs to 70 percent, fish to 90 percent, shrimp to 100 percent and production of red meat to 30 percent of total domestic demand by 2023.
The self-sufficiency rate in the production of local vegetables increased from about 20 percent in 2017 to about 46 percent in 2022, an increase of about 130%. The self-sufficiency in milk and its products increased from only 28% in 2017 to 100% in 2022, which means that the sufficiency rate has quadrupled over the last five years.
The self-sufficiency in the production of fresh broiler chicken also increased from 50% in 2017 to 100% in 2022, and table eggs from 14% in 2017 to 36% in 2022, with an increase of more than 157%. The self-sufficiency rate in red meat increased from 13% in 2017 to reach about 18%, an increase of about 38%. The food security strategy aims to stabilise the self-sufficiency rate of both dairy and fresh broiler chicken at 100%, and raise the self-sufficiency rate for eggs to 70% and red meat to 30% by 2023.
