With the regional political turbulence continuing for more than a week, Qatar’s food security strategy has shown great resilience with no disruption for major food items in the country.
This proves that the Qatar National Food Security Strategy 2030 is well aligned with the country’s preparedness and is paying great rewards especially during the crisis.
The supermarkets in the country are well stocked and there has been no disruption so far in the essential provisions. Except for the panic buying on the first few hours on the day the tensions broke out, the supermarkets have seen no rush and almost all the food items are well supplied in the country.
The Ministry of Commerce and Industries in a statement a few days back said: “The industrial sector includes more than 138 national food manufacturing plants, producing a diverse range of high-quality products and operating at full capacity to ensure that the needs of the local market are met.”
These plants include 20 water production companies, 24 dairy product companies, 16 meat and fish processing companies, 15 bakery and pasta producing factories, and 10 packaging and milling factories. In addition, there are nine vegetable factories, nine juice factories, nine edible oil factories, seven food industries and ready-made meal factories five biscuits and confectionary factories, five date processing factories, five coffee and nut processing factories, and four spice and sauce factories, as well as two sugar factories - all of which are operating in full swing across the country.
Hamad Hadi al-Hajri, assistant director of Food Security Department, at the Ministry of Municipality told Gulf Times in an earlier interview that the Qatar National Food Security Strategy 2030 was visualised with the aim of ensuring sustainable food access and maintaining a strategic reserve of essential food items for two to eight months.
He said: “We are establishing a strategic reserve of select commodities so that we can cater for the needs of the community. The strategic reserve has been designed very carefully so that we can have enough supply that can cover for a specific period.”
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.
“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 had stated.
Al-Hajri also said the main objective of the reserve is make sure that the food supply chain is not affected due to any external reasons. The current scenario truly reflects his views as Qatar so far is not affected by the escalating tensions in the region.
“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 in the market that could affect the food system. 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 has an extended shelf life, we will create a reserve,” he underlined.
He added: “The strategy is to continue the efforts that we have done in the past and build upon all those initiatives. We have made a huge improvement in the local production, establishing reserve stock for basic commodities and diversifying trade and investment.”
