INTERVIEW

The Gulf state of Qatar is undertaking one of the most ambitious dairy expansion plans in history. Claire Fox talks to the Irishman masterminding the operation

THERE’S dairy expansion and then there’s going from zero to 3,000 cows in less than four months. That’s what happened on the Baladna farm just north of Qatar’s capital city Doha in an embargo-busting mission being masterminded by 58-year-old John Dore from Kildare.

And he’s only getting started as the overall target is to have 10,000 cows milking on the Baladna farm by next April.

In June, Qatar’s neighbouring countries Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Egypt, and Bahrain severed all diplomatic ties with Qatar as they believe it supports terrorism. This included a boycott on trade and imports from these four countries.

Heavily dependent on dairy products from Saudi Arabia, for many the blockade signalled potential disaster, but for John it was the golden opportunity to expand the operations of the 700,000sqm Baladna farm even further.

“There were about eight different players in the Qatar dairy market prior to the blockade,” says John. “Four from Saudi, one from the United Arab Emirates and two or three local players. Almost 80pc of our food came from exports from these countries and 90pc of our dairy came from Saudi, so we saw the opportunity to expand and jumped at it.

“We already had the plans to expand in place and got the finance for it all going. It’s very exciting.”

The plan got under way in July, when Qatar Airways flew in 165 Holstein cows from Budapest. Over the following months, the herd expanded to 3,000 as cows were flown in from far-flung locations such as Australia, the US, the Netherlands and Germany.

“We flew in Holsteins, we only want the best to produce the best milk for the market,” says John.

While a lot of dairy farms in Qatar — which is about a sixth the size of Ireland — have yet to move on to modern milking technologies, the Baladna enterprise is leading the way in modern milking and is using world-class Irish products to do so.

“Qatar hadn’t applied the same technology that other countries had. They hadn’t moved on since the 80s and 90s. We have the biggest and best rotary parlour in the Middle East and guess where it’s from? Dairymaster in Causeway. So that’s one for Kerry. It can milk 750 cows an hour per 200 units,” he explained.

At present Baladna supplies 30-40pc of the Qatari dairy market. By April 2018, John is determined that they can make this 100pc by expanding the herd to 10,000.

“I don’t just want to make Qatar self sufficient. It will happen. There’s 30-40,000 na- tive Qataris living here and about two million foreigners. Yes, the market isn’t big but it’s a lucrative one with lots of opportunities for us. We will make enough milk as the market demands,” he added.

Food security is the word on everyone’s lips on Qatar, and beef is next on John’s agenda.

“Food security is the big word here in Qatar. The whole blockade has woken Qatar up. Most of our food came from Saudi before this. People are pro-Qatar now and want to buy Qatari milk.

“What we’re doing here is born out of the need for food security and the 2030 Qatar National Vision. We will rear our own bulls here and enter the beef market and increase our 40,000 sheep herd as well,” he says.

The cows in the Baladna herd stand on rubber mattresses while automated scrapers remove their manure.

The system resembles a factory production line rather than your normal dairy farm, but for John it’s not the hectic system that’s the biggest challenge, it’s the temperature and humidity that takes the most getting used to for an Irish man.

“The challenge is humidity.

THE BLOCKADE HAS WOKEN QATAR UP AND WHAT WE ARE DOING IS BORN OUT OF THE NEED FOR FOOD SECURITY