Qatar through a number of innovative agricultural initiatives, taken in recent years, and through enhancing supply chain network and storage capabilities has succeeded in ensuring food security for its population.
The National Food Security Strategy of Qatar (2018-2023) aims to achieve an abundance of food through local production, strategic storage, and securing import sources and that food prices are appropriate and accessible to all.
The National Food Security Strategy in Qatar (2018-2023) is based on five main pillars: international trade and logistics, local self-sufficiency, strategic stocks, local markets and supply chains, and research and development.
Minister of Municipality H E Abdullah bin Abdulaziz bin Turki Al Subaie on Thursday launched the book of the Executive Report of the Agricultural Census in Qatar for the year 2021, which was completed in cooperation between the Ministry and Qatar University represented by the Social and Economic Survey Research Institute.
The agricultural census project, which was completed under the supervision of the Arab Organization for Agricultural Development, is considered one of the most important statistical projects in the regional and international arena, as it is one of the main pillars of the planning process and building agricultural strategies in both its plant and animal parts.
The latest data also confirms that the agricultural sector in Qatar with both its plant and animal parts, has succeeded in making great leaps on the road to sustainable development and achieving self-sufficiency, especially after allocating an annual support to this sector of QR70m over five years, with the aim of stimulating agricultural, livestock and fish production and marketing agricultural products, to reach self-sufficiency in crops by 70% by 2023.
The agricultural sector, especially the plant sector, achieved an increase in the investment of protected areas by 28% during the period from 2019 to 2021, after it increased from 520 hectares to 666 hectares.
Director of the Department of Agricultural Affairs at the Ministry of Municipality Youssef Al Khulaifi has confirmed that the local production of vegetables witnessed a qualitative leap during the past years, achieving an increase of 100% during the past three years compared to what preceded it, as the local production of vegetables during 2021 amounted to about 102,000 tonnes, compared to 55,000 tonnes in 2017, and thus the rate of self-sufficiency of local vegetables increased from about 20% in 2017 to reach about 46% during 2022, an increase rate is about 130 percent, knowing that the target percentage is 70
percent.
