Qatar to meet its milk needs in ’18

QATAR will be selfsufficient in milk by next July, thanks to boycott-busting cows flown in to boost supplies after neighbouring Gulf states severed links with Doha, a firm said on Tuesday.

Nearly six months after the eruption of a bitter political crisis which has rocked the region, the man in charge of the soon-to-be 14,000 animals, said Qatar would be able to meet all its own milk needs by the middle of next year.

“We should be self-sufficient by June/July,” John Dore, CEO of Baladna Livestock Production, said.

The Irishman said: “Our aim is quite basically to be part of the national effort, to put our finger up to the Saudis.

“We don’t need you, we can do it ourselves.”

He said the total cost of flying in the cows from Germany and the United States, building milking parlours at the site 80 kilometres north of Doha, and production was 3 billion Qatari Riyals ($825 million).

Qatar was pushed centrestage into the region’s worst political crisis for years when on June 5 neighbours Saudi Arabia, the UAE and Bahrain as well as Egypt cut ties with the gas-rich emirate.

The countries accuse Qatar of supporting terrorism and fostering ties with Saudi Arabia’s great regional rival, Shiite-dominated Iran, allegations that Doha denies.

One immediate impact of the crisis was the need for Qatar to find alternative food supplies as all exports of food from those countries in conflict with the emirate halted.