The cultivated land of Qatar has reached over 13,430 hectares which produced 772,829 tonnes of fruits, vegetables, grains and green fodders in 2021.
This came in a statistics shared by the Agricultural Affairs Department of the Ministry of Municipality on its social networking sites yesterday. According to the statistics, the production of vegetables which were cultivated in over 2,766 hectares reached a huge 101,882 tonnes in 2021.
As much as 29,933 tonnes of fruits were produced in 2,703 hectares areas of cultivated lands.
The cultivated lands for grains recorded 394 hectares during the period of study which gave 3,305 tonnes of grains.
To support livestock sector, green fodder were cultivated at 7,566 hectares of arable lands which produced a huge 637,706 tonnes of fodders in 2021.
The growing arable lands and agricultural production are showing the success of Qatar National Food Security Strategy 2018-2023 which aims to increase 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.
National Food Security Strategy is being implemented in coordination with the authorities concerned like the Ministry of Commerce and Industry.
The strategy is run by the Food Security Department at the Ministry of Municipality with members from all ministries. Qatar made remarkable achievements in food security despite the difficulties and challenges that the country faced during the years 2017-2021, as well as the harsh climatic and environmental conditions it is facing.
The situation of food security in Qatar has improved remarkably which reflected on the affordability, availability and quality of food supplies through enhancing sustainable investments in infrastructure, food security policies and strategies.
Food system in Qatar is successful, as a result of concerted efforts and cooperation between a number of sectors and a wide range of stakeholders.
The national committee, with stakeholders from the government and private sectors, coordinates the implementation of the national food security strategy.
Qatar had also established a national food security analytics platform, which is able to collect and integrate all data related to food security under a single digital dashboard available to decision makers in Qatar and which helps in designing data-based and fact-based policies and interventions.
Consumers, traders, food processing factories and producers, researchers, students and policy makers formed a solid foundation for the development and implementation of national food security initiatives.
Qatar stepped up a slew of measures to improve food systems to comply with the 2030 sustainable development goals of UN, through projects and programmes that have been implemented to enhance the food system in the country.