The Peninsula
Qatar Food Systems National Dialogue, organised by the Ministry of Municipality and Environment over the past two day, as part of preparations for a global food summit scheduled for next September.
The dialogue initiated by UN Secretary General António Guterres, and held simultaneously in almost all member states. The event comes in preparation for the United Nations Food Systems Summit due in September this year. Main objective of the dialogues is to understand how can we ensure our food systems are resilient, sustainable, equitable and healthy by 2030.
If we don’t achieve this we will not be able to reach the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) all member states signed up to. The way we produce and consume our Food plays an important role in almost all of the 17 Sustainable Development Goals.
Qatar first National Dialogue attracted the interest and was attended by about 70 people with leaders from both public and private sectors. Retailers, traders, producers, suppliers, scientists, policy makers and regulators were all well represented. Four consecutive panel discussions were organized covering four United Nations Food System Summit action tracks: resilient food systems, sustainable production, equitable trade and food safety.
Qatar already made great strides making its food system resilient, sustainable, equitable and safe demonstrated by the presentations that were given. Local production tripled in a very short period from less than 10% not so long ago, to an average of 30%, and over 70% and up to 100% for the most critical perishable items. Centralized strategic reserves and decentralized commercial buffer stocks have been established for a very broad spectrum of products in effective partnerships with the public and private sectors. We are producing animal fodder using recycled water thereby preserving our local aquifers.
Panellists during the Qatar Food Systems National Dialogue organised by Ministry of Municipality and Environment
And we are running an annual cycle funding scheme for R&D projects in Food Security facilitating innovations in local food production, food storage and food supply chains.
The public did raise a few important items pressing us to go a few steps further than we have done so far. They raised the need to find more effective ways to protect our local industries and their investments post the economic blockade. The need to consider allowances for regional exports to improve the economic feasibility and attractiveness of food production and food manufacturing in Qatar.
The education and training of home-grown agronomists and the urgent need to take action in establishing reserves for agriculture inputs (seeds, fertilisers and pesticides, packaging material and animal feed). We also obtained a strong mandate from the public to tackle the issue of food waste. Our local retailers and our government are already a fair way in testing options to convert food waste into valuable non-food items such as pet foods and fertilizers.
With some retailers already voluntarily committed to the 2030 goal of 50%. The simple measure to separate “Best Before Use” and “Best Before Sales” shelf-life dates on food labels was introduced and expected to potentially decrease food waste significantly. Furthermore, the public found it important to get to know the extent of environmental issues in Qatar that influence our food production capacity: land degradation, aquifer depletion, and water quality.
One of the speakers suggested to use the Global GAP (Good Agriculture Practice) certification as minimal standard for local food production and food imports to ensure our food is safe: for consumers, farm workers and as well as for the environment.
And finally, the public believes we need to educate our consumers about the environmental impacts of their day-to-day food choices by adopting food labelling schemes that are already used in other countries showing the true cost of a food item (including environmental costs) versus the actual cost (the consumer price).
There are sufficient controls on securing affordable food prices for consumers in Qatar, especially the basic commodities. And there now also many government support programs in place to ensure fair pricing for producers.
It was strongly felt though, by both retailers and producers, that local producers are not rewarded for their efforts to produce in summer, using more capital-intensive growing systems and adopt environmentally friendly production methods preventing them from making these essential steps forward in food system resilience and sustainability.
Further discussions are needed to identify effective producer incentives to make this next level up in local production or find alternatives for year-round product availability and ecofriendly production practices. In light of the release of the most recent IPCC report on climate change, the topic was raised many times.
Many of the stakeholders present believed Qatar is ready for it, having already such harsh climate conditions. But we are not certain, because we also witnessed that many of the impacts we are witnessing now people were not prepared for. So there is a need to to assess the climate change readiness of Qatar’s food system. Finally, the introduction of the automated food safety inspection system by the Ministry of Public Health, was applauded by many if not all stakeholders. The system is just in pilot phase but already with impressive achievements, with comprehensive coverage of all critical points at risk in all steps in the supply chain, increasing the amount of inspections that can be done by one inspector by a threefold and reducing or even eliminating the clearance times of food imports at customs. Great outcomes after only two days of dialogues on food system resilience, sustainability, equability and food safety. A good preparation for the Global Food Summit in September and more to come
