With expanded production, Qatar set to attain self-sufficiency in milk products soon

Before the start of the illegal siege of Qatar, the country had been entirely dependant on Saudi Arabia and the UAE for most of its dairy needs.

However, the country started focusing on becoming self-sufficient in milk products by initiating out-of-the-box ideas including flying in cows from different parts of the world.

Those efforts seems to have paid off as Qatar is soon expected to attain self-sufficiency in milk production.

With Ramadan around the corner, the two biggest dairy farms in Qatar — the Arab Qatari Company for Dairy Production and Baladna — are getting ready to increase their outputs, reported Qatar Tribune.

Qatar, on an average, needs around 300,000 litres of milk per day.

With the two Qatari companies entering into their second stages of expansion, milk production in Qatar is expected to meet all the local demand.

“We’re going to increase our production by more than 200%,” Arab Qatari Company Manager Mohamed Elsadani told Qatar Tribune.

“Now we’re in the second phase of our expansion plan that was initiated after the blockade. In this phase, we’re likely to import nearly 5,000 hybrid cows from the Netherlands,” he added.

Baladna, which is Qatar’s largest supplier of dairy products now, is also on a similar growth trajectory. Its Board Chairman Moutaz Al Khayyat said Baladna will ship in more cows this year.

Last year, they airlifted around 3,300 cows from abroad and increased its daily output to 120,000 litres a day. It is in the process of bringing in 10,000 more cows this year.

It also added 200 more retail outlets to its network in 2017 and captured 60% of the country's retail dairy market. 

As part of its expansion plan, Baladna has installed the largest milking stall in the Middle East that can milk 100 cows in one go.