Abstract
Agriculture has played an essential role in the provision of food and has been a major factor in overall economic development for societies around the world for millennia. In the past, agriculture in hot, arid countries like Qatar faced many challenges, the primary one being a dearth of water for irrigation. Historically this severely limited Qatar’s economic development, which was based largely on resource exploitation, pearl fishing, and only more recently, on the exploitation of its oil and gas reserves which subsequently has led to Qatar’s great wealth. This paper gives an overview of the recent evolution of Qatar’s agricultural sector and investigates future trends that tackle the challenges of its hot arid climate and the limited availability of agricultural resources. Specifically, the review analyses Qatar’s potential to develop a national food security strategy based on a significant expansion of food production in the country. We review recent policy actions implemented to address challenges in the food supply chain caused by a 3.5-year blockade imposed by the adjacent Arab Gulf States, discussing the renewed interest in the potential that an enhanced agricultural sector must provide some aspects of food security and the implications for policymakers that would logically ensue.
Highlights
The continuing development of agriculture plays a vital role globally in ensuring food security, improving nutrition, poverty eradication, and assists in the overall economic development of the world
The traditional limitations to agriculture caused by the harsh summer climate and the limited extent of fertile soil could be rendered irrelevant with the adoption of soilless cultivation techniques, and advanced greenhouse technologies
The Ministry of Municipality and Environment (MME) in Qatar has a Department dedicated to Agricultural Affairs, as well as a separate but complementary Livestock and Fisheries Department, both support research and development of food production in Qatar
Summary
The continuing development of agriculture plays a vital role globally in ensuring food security, improving nutrition, poverty eradication, and assists in the overall economic development of the world. There has been an increase in Qatar’s population (a yearly growth rate of 1.81%) over the last 20 years, this will not be sustained as it has been primarily due to an expansion of immigrant workers (over 75% of the population) for the construction sector activity which is due to be severely curtailed in 2022, the year that Qatar hosts the FIFA World Cup. Thereafter, it is expected that an extensive hiatus in construction activity will ensue leading to a subsequent considerable reduction in Qatar’s migrant workers’ population and overall population. This paper provides an overview of the recent evolution of Qatar’s growing agricultural sector and discusses its importance for the country’s food security. It examines: the challenges that local agricultural production faces (Section 3); the opportunities for the development of agriculture (Section 4); and agricultural policy initiatives that seek to increase production and provide greater national food security (Section 5)
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