Qatar Food Security Strategy Eyes Up To Eight Months' Reserve

(MENAFN- Gulf Times) The Qatar National Food Security Strategy 2030 aims to maintain a strategic reserve of essential food items for two to eight months, a senior official of the Ministry of Municipality said.
“We are establishing a strategic reserve of select commodities so that we can cater for the needs of the community," Hamad Hadi al-Hajri, assistant director of Food Security Department, told Gulf Times.
"The strategic reserve was designed very carefully so that we can have enough supply that can cover for a specific period,” he explained.
He was speaking on the sidelines of the International conference on Water and Food Security in the Face of Climate Change: Challenges and Opportunities for Resilience organised by the University of Doha for Science and Technology recently.
“We have the basic commodity basket which includes wheat, rice, sugar, edible oils and other stuff. The storage range for them is between two to eight months, depending on the commodity, as this can serve as an insurance against supply chain shocks. We are also enhancing the scope of the strategic reserve,” al-Hajri stated.
The main objective of the reserve is make sure that the food supply chain is not affected due to any external reasons.
“We know that we live in a very dynamic world and environment. There can be situations such as geopolitical tensions, biosecurity issues, disruption in the supply chain or in the market that could affect the food system and we are making sure that the food supply chain can sustain with the strategic storage. The basic idea within the strategy is: whatever we can store that have an extended shelf life, we will create a reserve,” he said.
According to al-Hajri, the Qatar National Food Security Strategy 2030 is based on 17 initiatives across three pillars. The three pillars are: domestic production and markets; strategic storage reserve and alert system and International trade and investment.
“The strategy is to continue the efforts that we have done in the past and build upon all of those efforts. We have made a huge improvement in the local production, establishing reserve stock for basic commodities and also we are trying to diversify trade and investments. So these three are the main pillars of the strategy,” he said.
Al-Hajri said that within the domestic production, the country is focusing on enhancing the production of vegetables, fresh poultry, fresh red meat, eggs, dairy products and fisheries as well.
“The strategy also aims to enhance the productivity, yield and the sustainability of the local production. This is to make sure that the production will continue in case of any disturbance in the supply chain with the agricultural input,” he noted.
The official pointed out that the government is trying to enhance the productivity and the economic returns for the farmers.“We focus on key selected commodities such as vegetables. We also look for other commodities. In case there is a viable and feasible case and good return in the commercial market, we support that. We provide different kinds of subsidies so that the local and small farmers and breeders can sustain themselves financially.”

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