French firms keen to share farm expertise with Qatar

French companies are ready to share their expertise with Qatar in the field of agriculture and aquaculture to help the country attain self-sufficiency, a senior official of Business France has said.
Business France, the national agency supporting the international development of the French economy, helps French companies to develop
partnerships abroad.
“We have a lot of technologies and solutions which have been tested in France, we can offer a lot to Qatar to develop the production of different kind of products in the field of technologies in vegetable and fruit production and fish farming (aquaculture), among others,” Business France’s Middle East managing director Marc Cagnard said.
“We are experts in green houses and several other new technologies in farming, and we want to bring some new technology with a lot of optimisation of existing solutions,” he noted.
Cagnard was speaking on the sidelines of the ‘French Technologies in Agriculture’ seminar in Doha yesterday, which brought a delegation of 13 French companies specialised in agriculture and aquaculture.
The event explored new opportunities of partnerships and transfer of technologies between French companies and Qatar in agriculture.
Ministry of Municipality and Environment’s (MME) agricultural research department director Massoud al-Marri, Aquaculture Department head Mohammed al-Abdulla, local farm owners and guests took part in the seminar.
The seminar saw French companies presenting their know-how, experience and the kind of products or services they can develop with Qatar to respond to the latter’s needs for
self-sufficiency.
French agribusiness experts are specialised in new concept of fruits and vegetable production, from greenhouses to urban farms (Aquaponie Valley, Barre, CMF Florentaises, FUL, Refarmers), monitoring the proliferation of infectious diseases (Octopus Robots), organic-mineral fertilisers (OvinAlp) and alternatives to agricultural additives based on algae (Olmix Group). 
PFI Nouvelles Vagues and Tarbouriech presented their experience in aquaculture and fisheries while Allice tackled reproduction physiology and animal genetic selection.
Another company, Agrosolutions, gathers experts and consultants in innovative and sustainable solutions for agriculture, environment, territories management and food industries while Cesbron deals with systems for industrial processes such as refrigeration, air treatment and energy controls.
“France has a lot to offer in the field of agriculture and sustainable development. After hosting the COP21 and the One Planet Summit, French ecosystem is focused on innovations to produce food while protecting the environment,” Business France Qatar head Christelle Peyran said in a statement.
“We are the third European producer of fruits and vegetables. We have developed new concepts of urban farming or aquaponics,” she added.
According to Business France Qatar, France is the first agricultural producer in Europe and has more than 19mn cattle, more than any other country and has 34% of all bovine livestock raised for meat in Europe.
France’s fishing industry – from boat to consumer – is ranked fourth among sea fisheries in Europe with 9% of community catches; continental France has 63 fishing ports, 38 fish markets, 12 producers’ organisations and 608 wholesale and processing companies.
France produces 9mn tonnes (mt) of fruit and vegetables and 5.3mt of ware potatoes in a total area of 550,000 hectares. 
“The government of Qatar launched several initiatives to support local production such as a proactive food safety programme ‘Qatar National Food Security Programme’ aiming to develop the agriculture market and ensure food self-efficiency by 2023, Peyran said.