Doha: Qatar has made great progress in establishing a food system capable of withstanding supply chain disruptions and price hikes during emergency situations.
“To ensure food security, we successfully implemented a number of measures like increasing local food production, and building strategic storage facilities for essential food items to provide for six months supplies,” said Minister of Municipality and Environment and Acting Minister of State for Cabinet Affairs, H E Dr. Abdullah bin Abdulaziz bin Turki Al Subaie.
He said the measures also include diversifying sources of import through exploring alternative markets, upgrading local market, and enhancing logistic services to meet the goal.
The Minister was addressing yesterday the opening ceremony of Qatar Food System National Dialogue, a two-day event which is being organised by MME in coordination with the Ministry of Commerce and Industry (MoCI).
The event is being held under the preparation for UN Food Systems Summit 2021 which will take place in September with an aim of making progress on all Sustainable Development Goals by 2030.
The event was attended by Assistant Under Secretary for Agriculture and Fisheries Affairs, Sheikh Dr. Faleh bin Nasser Al Thani; Director of Food Security Department, Masoud Jarallah Al Marri; and other stockholders from public and private sectors.
The Minister said that under Qatar Food System National Dialogue many sessions will be held to discuss common concerns and a common future, whether at the national or international level, to focus on how to deal with the planet, addressing issues of climate changes, achieving justice, sustainability, and flexibility of the food system at present and in future.
“Many countries have witnessed, in recent times, devastating impacts of climate change, including but not limited to floods in northern Europe, heat waves and wildfires in the Mediterranean region, North America, Canada and others,” said the Minister.
He said these impacts alarmed all countries of the world of the danger of what is happening to the planet, and the need to make all efforts to prevent or limit climate change.
“The issue of clime change should not be addressed only by expanding the use of renewable energy, but these efforts should extend to food systems, which account for at least 30% of the problem related to the food we consume and food production methods.”
He pointed out that Secretary-General of the United Nations H E Antonio Guterres took the initiative and urged all member states to put food system at the top of their national agenda and organise national food systems dialogues.
“The initiative aims at engaging all stakeholders including youth, the elderly, traders, farmers, students, professors, regulators and policy makers in discussions on how to make our food systems resilient, sustainable, equitable and healthy for the planet and its inhabitants,” said the Minister.
“The Food Systems Summit 2021 will address the most important issues of climate change, global epidemics of diet-related diseases, the harmful impact of food production on our natural resources, and the sustainability and vitality of food production systems,” said Dr. Masoud Jarallah Al Marri, who is also National Coordinator of UN Food System Summit from Qatar. He said the two-day event will hold four sessions on most important topics related to food system.
The two sessions held yesterday were on ‘Action Track Resilience of Food System Against Crises’ and ‘Action Track Boosting Nature Positive Production at Scale’.
Another two sessions which are scheduled to be held today will be on ‘Action Track Equitable Trade Practice’ and ‘Action Track Use Technologies in Food Safety Management’.
Vice-Chairman of the Youth Advisory Committee to the Minister of Culture and Sports, Khadija Bouhelika, said that according to studies, the task of food security has three important aspects — availability of food items, access to food items, and their use by the target group.
“When evaluating the situation of these three aspects, we see the need for farmers and commercial farms to be able to provide foods in the country,” said Khadija.
