Qatar’s Ministry of Municipality and Environment has stated that sales of local vegetables have surged over three-fold in the second season of ‘Qatar Farms Program 2019’ compared to the previous season. The sales of vegetables jumped to 8,226 tons in 2019 season compared to 1,969 tons in 2018 season, showing an increase of 318 percent. Of the total local vegetable sales in the country, around 20 percent of the vegetables are being sold under this program.

The Ministry of Municipality and Environment, in cooperation with the Ministry of Commerce and Industry, had launched the program last year in collaboration with major commercial outlets including Carrefour, Lulu Hypermarkets, Al Meera and Family Food Center.

The program ran only two months during first season with a total sales of 1,969 tons of local vegetables which encouraged the authorities to launch the second season in December 2018 in collaboration with over 10 major commercial outlets.

As per the statistics related by the Ministry of Municipality and Environment represented by the Agricultural Affairs Department, under the program the highest local vegetables were sold out at Al Meera, accounting 56 percent of total sales, followed by Lulu Hypermarkets with 19 percent of the total sales. Carrefour and Family Food Center contributed 15 and seven percent of the total sales, respectively.

The program aims at involving commercial outlets in selling large quantity of local vegetables wher they used to showcase imported vegetables.