Flower Festival opens at Al Mazrouah

DOHA: Flower Festival 2018 has officially opened its doors yesterday for public at winter market of Al Mazrouah (near Umm Salal) organised by The Ministry of Municipality and Environment.
Locally grown vegetables, fruits, flowers and ornamental plants are attracting huge crowds at the second Flower Festival 2018. This festival will continue for three days at Al Mazrouah. The winter market of Al Khor-Al Dhakhira will have the festival from January 18 to 20 while visitors can enjoy flower festival at Al Wakrah winter market from January 25 to 27.
Talking to The Peninsula, Abdul Rehman Al Sulaiti, General Supervisor of Agricultural Product Yards, said: “Compared to 2017, there is a big difference in quantity of products. This season the products have doubled in quantity. This month you can find all types of vegetables at cheap price. There are six farms and three companies, along with the Department of Public Parks, are participating in this flower festival he outlined. In addition to this public parks have also brought beautiful flowers in market,”.
“Al Wathbah Farm has locally produced the flowers which were being imported from different countries untill last year. Several local farms have participated in the festival this year, with the variety of flowers and flower plants in huge quantity,” Al Sulaiti added.
Several local companies like Khiratona Farm, Al Safwa Farm, Samrat Khataaf nursery, Global Farm for agricultural supplies and Al Sulaiteen Agricultural and Industrial Complex one of the largest farm in Qatar participated in Flower Festival 2018.
Local production has made it easy for the vendors to sell freshly harvested vegetables on the same day to the customers. However, the salespersons at the Flower festival are expecting to see more customers every day.
“Local vegetables include cucumber, cabbage, green chilly, capsicum, tomato, eggplant, bitter gourd, pumpkin, beans, broccoli, green onions, and various leaves and herbs among the others. Cucumber’s box which is sold for QR37 for a carton weighing (7 to 8 kg) at hypermarkets is being sold at QR20 at flower festival ,” said Zubair, a salesman at Flower Festival.
“These vegetables are from farms in Doha, located in Al Khor and Al Shamal. We will try to sell maximum quantity of fruits and vegetables by the end of the day, so prices go down as the day ends. Now, due to winter season customers are comfortable to visit flower festival at day and night. We keep these fresh vegetables for two days,” he added. Meanwhile, the imported vegetables and fruits are more expensive which are sold at the supermarkets as compared to the prices at the flower festival.
Australian customer at flower festival said: “The variety of flowers this year is amazing. I have seen a huge change in the quantity of fruits, vegetables and flowers. Few of the flowers were not in the flower festival last year, like coloured sunflowers, yellow tulips and yellow lilies. The variety of vegetables have made our shopping easier and price of vegetables and fruits is comparatively cheap”.