00:01From vegetables to dairy, up to 80% of Qatar's food was once globally sourced.
00:08But global trade disruptions pushed the country away from imports towards independence.
00:15Qatar's food supply has been challenged several times over the last decade.
00:19But instead of relying solely on the support of others, it spurred the country to develop its own solutions,
00:25planting seeds of change locally and from the ground up.
00:29But in a country that has more sand than soil, forging food security isn't so straightforward.
00:35So what does it take to grow resilience closer to home?
00:39I'm Laila Humaira and this is Qatar In Motion.
00:48Did you know that a decade ago, a carton of frozen vegetables like eggplants or lettuce
00:54would have travelled thousands of kilometres before reaching supermarket shelves in Qatar?
01:00Meanwhile, bottles of cranberry juice would have had to be imported from GCC neighbours like the UAE and Saudi Arabia.
01:09Fast forward to today, Qatar is nearly completely self-sufficient,
01:14producing almost all of the vegetables and dairy it consumes,
01:18and even exports the agricultural surplus.
01:22The numbers show great success and prove that large-scale food production is possible here.
01:28But how?
01:31I'm about an hour's drive north of Doha in the middle of a desert,
01:36an unlikely place for fruits and vegetables to grow.
01:39Yet all around me, coriander, cucumber and eggplant grow all year round.
01:46So I'm here to see for myself how this farm defies nature,
01:50producing a steady harvest despite a harsh climate,
01:54and to see how it manages to supply up to 90% of Qatar's fresh produce.
02:00This is Nasser Al-Khalaf.
02:03In 2011, he started running the country's only hydroponics organic farm on 12 hectares of land.
02:11Today, that land has more than doubled,
02:14and Agri-Co has become Qatar's leading agricultural company.
02:19Right here we have the cherry tomato,
02:21and we start plantation in August, every August for the cherry tomato.
02:27So this is the hydroponic system.
02:30We have the grow bags.
02:32The grow bags has coconut fiber.
02:34So the coconut fiber is actually, it replaces the soil for us.
02:38So instead of soil, we use a natural product like coconut fiber.
02:43So it has coconut chips and the cocoa peat.
02:45There is no add value of the coconut fiber itself
02:49other than preserving the water and releasing the water slowly.
02:53Instead of the natural soil, it actually releases the water much faster than the coconut fiber.
02:59Other than hydroponics and vertical farming,
03:03Agri-Co also uses aquaponics as a farming method,
03:06which it's able to do by cultivating its own fish and aquaculture.
03:11Nasser's family has been in the food trading industry for more than 70 years,
03:16and it's from this experience that came the foresight to establish the company.
03:21We knew back then that we were below the red line in terms of food security,
03:26especially with fruits and vegetables.
03:28Everything in Qatar is actually against agriculture.
03:31So we had to adapt and we had to create the right temperature,
03:35the right humidity, the right amount of water, quality of water,
03:39the right supply chain, the right material.
03:41We had to source all the material individually
03:44and to make sure that we are using the best material.
03:48As industries align with Qatar National Vision 2030,
03:52the road to being self-sustaining is increasingly paved with a commitment to sustainability.
03:58So farmers growing food where nature says no
04:01are now asking how they can do so while using less resources.
04:06Leading the way is Agri-Co, making the farm green in more ways than one.
04:11All the waste in Agri-Co, from organic waste, even the excess water usage,
04:18the water is being recycled three times to make sure that we are taking the optimum consumption of the water.
04:25We are producing around 120 ton every week of organic waste.
04:29All of this is being treated and being composted,
04:33which will again go back to different farms,
04:36even in Agri-Co, and to landscape companies
04:39to produce new plants, to produce new vegetables,
04:42and those vegetables go back to the market.
04:45This secularity, Nasir believes,
04:48is not only good for the environment,
04:50but also the business strategy.
04:52In recent years, strong yields have enabled Agri-Co
04:55to export its agricultural surplus
04:57to neighbouring countries.
05:00Revenue growth has allowed the company to expand its operations
05:04and explore new technology,
05:06such as using LED lights for horticulture,
05:09which will further help reach Qatar's food security goals.
05:13Food security is divided into two sections.
05:17So one part is local production,
05:19but the other part is logistics,
05:23distribution, manufacturing, and supply chain.
05:26So the logistic and supply chain and distribution,
05:31we have to focus on things that we should not grow locally.
05:35Things like grains, rice, sugar, oil products,
05:41and things like that.
05:41No, we should not focus on growing it locally.
05:45We have to have a proper facility
05:46to import, manufacture, and downstream from there.
05:50The other part, which is, I think, the most difficult part,
05:53is local production.
05:55From farming, vegetables, poultry, red meat,
05:59kettles, livestock, aquaculture,
06:02all these kind of things, it has to be produced locally.
06:06It can be produced because it's a short shelf life product.
06:11We cannot store it for a long time,
06:12and we cannot depend on other countries
06:14to secure our needs.
06:16Still, Qatar isn't looking to replace all imports completely,
06:22but rather building a food system
06:24that is resilient and shock resistant.
06:27The country was already quietly building
06:30the foundations of self-sufficiency,
06:32and one crisis after another
06:35forced it to scale them up for the better.
06:43Beyond the technologies that help crops thrive
06:46and roadmaps that guide Qatar's vision
06:48is another intricate ecosystem,
06:51one that is led by nature.
06:53A network of pollinators,
06:55their role in agriculture goes far beyond the buzz
06:58and one the country hopes will eventually bear fruit
07:01on a large scale.
07:04Peas are extremely important.
07:06Our food, 30% of our food production
07:12depends on the fertilization,
07:14pollination by bees.
07:17So if bees don't exist,
07:20we will lose 30% of the world's agriculture product,
07:24which is huge.
07:26When I came here at the end of 23,
07:30as an advisor,
07:32I saw so many trees here.
07:34So my first reaction as a Yemeni,
07:37because we like honey and bees,
07:40I asked,
07:41do you keep bees here?
07:44And they told me,
07:46no, there are no bees in education city.
07:48But they told me that somebody in the development section
07:53is interested in beekeeping,
07:56which is Simon.
07:57So we became partner in this,
07:59and we got approval of the leadership of Qatar Foundation
08:03to start our apiary here in Qatar Foundation,
08:08in the education city.
08:11Our production cycle starts in early,
08:14late August, early September.
08:16And by mid-November,
08:18we harvest the cedar honey,
08:19which is the most valuable,
08:20most sought-after honey.
08:23So the cedar honey has got a really, really unique taste.
08:28It's a monofloral type of honey,
08:30and it's got lots of medicinal benefits.
08:32Right now, the cedar season has just finished,
08:35so the flowers have stopped blooming
08:36and the nectar has stopped flowing.
08:38So now's the right time to harvest.
08:41This morning, we went to the education city apiary
08:44and we harvested honey from 10 beehives.
08:47So generally, the bees are pretty calm, to be honest.
08:50But when we go and do the inspections,
08:52we have to wear these suits,
08:53we wear the gloves,
08:54and then we put our hoods on.
08:55And then we use a smoker just to smoke the bees
08:57to kind of calm them down.
08:58And then that's when we start taking out the frames.
09:03So we take the frames out of the hives.
09:05We bring all of the frames here to the Green Island.
09:09Then we take the wax cappings off
09:11and then we put it into the extractor.
09:13And then through a centrifugal process,
09:15it spins out and all the honey flies out.
09:17And then we keep it in steel drums for around a month.
09:20We can save 99% of the bees.
09:25And also we don't harvest all the honey that they are producing.
09:30So we leave a lot of honey also for them to start new season.
09:37We are producing an average of 7.5 kilos per hive.
09:42Usually in Qatar, the average is around between 4 and 5 kilos.
09:47But we hope in the future to have a facility with lecture room
09:53and maybe outside area with a secure glass
09:58to have a few hives for demonstration.
10:02So we can invite more students.
10:05And they are safe.
10:06They don't need to wear clothes, protective clothes.
10:10They are behind glass.
10:13And we explain to them the importance of bees and all these issues.
10:22So we've seen how Qatar is tackling food resilience
10:25from several different aspects.
10:28So what's next?
10:29And how can the country prepare for food challenges of the future?
10:33Researchers at Hamad bin Khalifa University
10:35have embarked on a new study to figure it all out.
10:39In collaboration with our government partners,
10:42we've been doing research to look at
10:43what has worked really well in the past
10:45to help us overcome some of those challenges
10:47and what are the transferable lessons from those.
10:51So what happened in 2017 is different than what happened in 2020.
10:55But there are transferable lessons
10:57about how we build resilience into our systems.
10:59So that's what we're doing in the College of Public Policy
11:02is to look across how can we build resilience
11:04from successful lessons here.
11:07So in 2017, as a result of investing in infrastructure like ports,
11:12as a result of investing in infrastructure
11:14like roads and storage and so forth,
11:17we were able to overcome the shock
11:20of having our food trade disrupted when COVID came.
11:23So these lessons give us insight
11:25about how we can build resilience into our broader system,
11:30not only food security,
11:31but throughout the government and throughout society.
11:36From bees to hydroponics to desert-defying farming methods,
11:40the seeds of resilience Qatar planted years ago
11:43have yielded a strong sense of security and confidence
11:47that even in uncertain times,
11:49crisis can be turned into opportunity.
11:52That's all the time we have for now.
11:53Thanks for watching Qatar in Motion and see you next time.
