Cultivating the best foundation for Qatar's food security

I truly admire the determination of the Qatari people to live on what to most people looks like a barren, rocky, arid peninsula, hit occasionally by high winds, dust storms and torrential rain. It even hailed here a few weeks ago. In Qatar University (QU) the garden workers informed me that many trees and plants had been damaged by the wind and heavy hail, which was found in 6 inch layers in some places! Some large trees were uprooted, possibly due to the fact that it is hard for most trees to secure themselves by spreading their roots deeply into what is mostly impervious, hard rock. It must have been a giant of a thundercloud.

However, every cloud has its silver lining they say. What most people do not know is that every lightning bolt through its intense heat creates a reaction whereby the abundant nitrogen in our atmosphere becomes nitrates (nitrogen fertilizer). These are then are dissolved in the rain that falls intensely onto the land during a thunderstorm. The lightning struck every few seconds, illuminating the night’s sky over Qatar, like a spectacular firework show, that went on for at least an hour or two, as a result of which we again had floods in many places, which were amazingly quickly cleared by the tankers. So literally the sky was raining down blessings and fertility to what soil there is here.

However, in many places there is no real soil. It is just bare rock. The natural soil that exists in thin layers is the clayey dust and sand that is swept by wind and water into depressions in the rock surface, and this is added to by the leaves of plants which managed to deposit their seeds in those depressions. So unfortunately there is very little soil to absorb this nutrient rich rain, and the rock is so hard in most places that the rain does not get absorbed at all, nor percolate down to lower levels, where it might replenish the aquifer and water table.

Whenever any planting takes place in Qatar, cultivators have to bring together dune sand, clay, and compost and often fertilizer as well from varied locations in Qatar and abroad, and mix them together to put them into the holes and ditches which usually have to be drilled into the hard limestone or gypsum rock, that used to be a prehistoric coral reef. Planting a tree here is no easy feat. After all this has been done, irrigation pipes have to be laid, and connected to a water source, hence the name ‘Landscape Engineer’ for most gardeners here in Qatar.

However, the Qatari Government is determined to become more food secure by cultivating more of its own food instead of importing 95% of it. Qataris also want to make this barren land more Green. Ezdan Holdings, doing well this year, have decided to make it their ambition to help 22 million trees to be planted in Qatar by 2022! Some people doubt that many trees will fit in Qatar, but perhaps if they do this would change the climate and bring more rain here. This really could happen. Apparently the Amazon Forest generates 50-80% of its own rainfall through the transpiration of water from its leaves. It also absorbs a lot of this rainfall, keeping it in the surface layers of soil that has been generated over many years from the leaves of trees and plants, and the excretions and remains of animals. Could Qatar ever develop a fertile soil that could absorb its abundant nitrate-rich winter rain like this?

Possibly yes. In partnership with SAB-Germany, a supplier of added raw materials, and Al Nakheel, one of the pioneers in composting in Qatar was Maher Jabado, with his Turba Peat company. To make his excellent, dark, fibrous, and nutritious compost and mulch materials, he did import some materials, including peat from Germany and some microbes and nutrients, but the rest of the ingredients were all recycled plant materials sourced from various locations in Qatar, for example grass cuttings, post harvesting tomato plant remains and possibly other crop remains. In the mulch he used pieces of tree bark, at least some from prunings in Qatar. This project, covering a large field in long ridges of compost in various, carefully monitored stages of development, is recycling quite a lot of locally produced plant materials, but not animal manure waste which was difficult to store on a large scale without the smell annoying their neighbouring farmers. It is now in high demand, being used all over the Aspire Zone landscaping areas and park, as well as the new Education City Golf Course.

Yet this operation looks small compared to the massive scale operations taking place at Al-Messaieed, according to reports. The Domestic Solid Waste Management Centre, includes an Anaerobic & Aerobic Digestion Plant, the largest composting facility in the World, which utilises Keppel Seghers proprietary waste-to-energy and waste management solutions. It has the capacity to produce, each day,52 tonnes of Grade A compost, 377 tonnes of Grade B compost, liquid fertilizer (51 tonnes of Grade A and 204 tonnes of Grade B) and 129 tonnes of biogas. The compost and liquid fertiliser can be used mainly as a nutrition additive for enriching soil quality for purposes such as park maintenance, landscaping, organic gardening and agriculture use.

Now that we know composting is possible in Qatar,to reduce wastage, and save costs on buying in compost, I encourage everyone who has a farm or garden to learn how to compost their waste kitchen scraps and plant and animal waste materials, to help build a fertile soil to grow food in. Some schools in Qatar, and QU as well, are beginning to demonstrate how to do this as part of their curriculum. Even old newspapers and cardboard can be placed in a compost heap. On a farm, or in a large garden manure from various different grass eating animals can be added. Ideally seaweed or seaweed extract could be included as it is very rich in trace minerals, which sometimes are not present in other plants. All that is needed is a few holes, or a few heaps, ideally some sort of fence or containment; a nearby water source, a good supply of materials to be placed in alternate nitrogen rich (fresh) and Carbon rich (dry) layers; and a little bit of manpower to water, and occasionally dig, shake, and turn the compost to aerate it- to ensure the composting process works properly, through the actions of many different organisms.

Some of these organisms may need to be added. We have now discovered that earthworms do exist in Qatar in some people’s garden soils, and cockroaches, earwigs, woodlice, ants and flies, all play a role in decay, along with moulds, fungi and bacteria. This is actually the intensified process of the creation of the organic matter part of the soil or‘ humus’, through which nutrients become available to plants. Plants need a varied diet of many trace minerals to stay healthy and to become a healthy food for humans and animals to consume. Most plants thrive in a soil with a good structure, containing proportions of humus, sand and clay, as well as small pieces of stone, that can hold some water and minerals, and in which soil life is abundant- fertile soil.

Qatar’s waste amounts to about 2.5 million tonnes every year, and about 60 % of this consists of organic materials. This is enough to make a vast amount of compost. If the materials could be separated at the point of disposal for example from the kitchen, it would make collection of materials for composting a lot easier. Imagine if all the nutrients from all the food imported into Qatar were made into a new soil for Qatar. With the 22 million trees, a lot of composting, and a lot of water from solar desalination, perhaps we can bring back to this region a tropical Garden of Eden!

The writer is an English Muslim, with a Masters in Urban Regeneration. She can be contacted at