African policymakers face a dilemma when it comes to COVID-19. The first hope is to prevent the virus from gaining a foothold at all, and many African states have significant experience of managing infectious disease outbreaks. The establishment of the Africa Centre for Disease Control highlights the hugely increased focus on public health in recent years.

But capacities to track, test and isolate vary wildly, notably between neighbours with porous and poorly controlled borders and, in most cases, sustained national-level disease control is difficult. Initial clusters of COVID-19 cases are already established in many places, but a lack of testing capacity makes it hard to know the full extent of transmission.

It is not obvious what African states should do as a response. Lack of information about COVID-19 means the proportion of asymptomatic or mild cases is not known, still less the ways in which this is influenced by human geography and demographics.

Africa is an overwhelmingly young continent with a median age under 20. But it also faces chronic malnutrition, which may weaken immune responses, and infectious diseases such as malaria, TB and HIV are widespread which could worsen the impact of COVID-19, particularly if treatment for these diseases is interrupted.

Complex and unknown

Ultimately, how all these factors interact with COVID-19 is complex and remains largely unknown. Africa may escape with a relatively light toll. Or it could be hit harder than anywhere else.

What is clear, however, is that cost of simply following the rest of the world into lockdown could be high. Africa is relatively rural but has higher populations living in informal settlements than anywhere in the world. Many live in cramped and overcrowded accommodation without clean water or reliable electricity, making handwashing a challenge and working from home impossible.

And the benefits appear limited. The goal of lockdowns in most places is not to eliminate the virus but to accept the economic and social costs as a price worth paying in order to ‘flatten the curve’ of infection and protect healthcare systems from being overwhelmed. But this logic does not hold when many of Africa’s healthcare systems are barely coping with pre-coronavirus levels of disease.

Africa suffers in comparison to much of the rest of the world in terms of access to quality and affordable healthcare, critical care beds and specialist personnel. For example, in 2017, Nigeria had just 120 ICU beds for a country of 200 million, equating to 0.07 per 100,000 inhabitants compared to 12.5 per 100,000 in Italy and 3.6 per 100,000 in China.

The pandemic’s ruinous economic impacts could also be more acute for Africa than anywhere else. The continent is highly vulnerable to potential drops in output and relies heavily on demand from China and Europe. Many states are already facing sharply falling natural resource revenues, and investment, tourism and remittances will suffer - all on top of a high existing debt burden.

Analysis by the World Bank shows that Africa will likely face its first recession in 25 years, with the continental economy contracting by up to 5.1% in 2020. Africa will have scant financial ammunition to use in the fight against COVID-19 with currencies weakening, food prices rising, local agri-food supply chains disrupted and food imports likely to decrease as well. A food security emergency appears a strong possibility.

So, although several states have imposed national lockdowns and others closed major urban centres, lockdowns are difficult to manage and sustain, especially in places where the daily hustle of the informal sector or subsistence agriculture are the only means of survival and where the state has neither the trust of the population nor the capacity to replace lost earnings or meet basic needs.

Of course, this is not simply a binary choice between lockdown or no lockdown - a range of intermediate options exist, such as some restriction on movement, curfews, shutting places of worship, banning only large gatherings, or closing pubs, schools and borders.

A significant number of African states have so far taken this middle path. This will not prevent the virus from spreading nor, in all probability, be enough to ensure adequate healthcare for all Africans infected with COVID-19. But it may help slow the spread and buy invaluable time for African states and partners to prepare.

How this time is used is therefore of paramount importance. Popular trust in the state is low in many African countries so strategies must empower communities, not alienate them. Africa’s experience of previous epidemics and long traditions of collective resilience and community-based crisis response - which persist in many places – are significant strengths.

The right messages must be carried by the right messengers, and policies - including cash transfers and food distribution - implemented sensitively. If not, or if responses become militarized, public consent is unlikely to be sustained for long.

Earlier this month, Sheikh Tamim – the emir of Qatar – hailed the country’s success in overcoming the impacts of the embargo levied by the so-called Arab Quartet – Bahrain, Egypt, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates (UAE). Qatar will post a budget surplus for the first time in three years, and the country’s long-term plan for economic diversification has taken great strides, according to the emir. Key among the achievements cited was the advancement of Qatar’s domestic food industry.

When the blockade was introduced in June 2017, it threw the vulnerability of Qatar’s domestic food supply to outside interruption into sharp relief. Qatar is poorly suited to growing food. The desert country ranks as the most water-stressed in the world. As one of the hottest, most arid countries in the world, trade is critical to feeding the nation; over 90 per cent of its food supply is imported.

Most of Qatar’s cereal imports – including 80 per cent of its wheat supply – arrive by sea from exporters including India, Russia and Australia. Sitting on the eastern edge of the Persian Gulf, Qatar’s only maritime gateway to the world is the Strait of Hormuz. This narrow body of water can, as events this summer have shown, be disrupted by geopolitical events. But for 40 per cent of overall food imports, overland trade from Saudi Arabia was Qatar’s primary supply channel before June 2017 – particularly so for dairy products and fresh fruit and vegetables coming from the EU, Turkey and Jordan.

The abrupt closure of Saudi Arabia’s borders prompted significant private investment in Qatar’s own food industry; domestic production has reportedly increased four-fold since the blockade was introduced. Prior to the blockade, Qatar imported 85 per cent of its vegetables; it now hopes to produce 60 per cent within the next three years. Perhaps even more remarkably, the country is now self-sufficient in dairy, having previously relied on imports for 72 per cent of its supply.

This progress has come at a cost. Qatar’s booming domestic industry is highly resource-intensive. To fill the gap in the dairy sector, Baladna – the country’s principal dairy producer – imported around 18,000 Holstein dairy cows from the EU and US. The company is thriving; in June of this year, it made its first dairy exports.

But the desert is not a natural environment for these cows; they must be kept indoors, at temperatures around 15°C cooler than the outside air, and misted with water to prevent overheating. The cooling systems are a huge drain on local resources. Each dairy cow requires an average of 185 gallons of water a day, almost twice the volume used by the average Qatari household. The majority of this water comes from oil- or gas-powered desalination plants; the cooling systems themselves run on gas-fired electricity.

Qatar has traditionally invested in production overseas – particularly in Sudan and Tanzania – to secure its fodder supply, but the government has plans to become self-sufficient in fodder crops such as lucerne (alfalfa) and Rhodes grass. This will require irrigation on a vast scale. Qatar’s farmland is mostly located in the north of the country where it benefits from aquifers; fodder production already accounts for half of the groundwater extracted for use in agriculture.

Despite commitments made under the National Food Security Programme to improving the water efficiency of Qatar’s food production, the rate of draw-down of these aquifers exceeds their recharge rates. Overexploitation has resulted in saline intrusion, threatening their long-term viability. With 92 per cent of all extracted groundwater given to farmers free of charge, there is little incentive for economizing on its use.

Increasing production will also likely mean increasing fertilizer use; rates of fertilizer use in Qatar are among the highest in the world, second only to those in Singapore.

Both government and industry are taking small steps to ‘green’ the country’s food production. Certain local authorities plan to ban the use of groundwater for fodder production by 2025, requiring producers to use treated sewage water instead and reserving the use of groundwater for crop production.

A number of companies are also adopting so-called ‘circular’ practices to achieve more efficienct resource use; Agrico, a major vegetable producer, has expanded its organic hydroponics operations, a move the company reports has led to a 90 per cent reduction in water use. But, with a target to produce up to 50 per cent of Qatar’s fresh food supply domestically within just a few years, scattered examples of resource-saving strategies will not be enough to mitigate the rise in water demand.

As Qatar looks to continue growing its food industry in the wake of the blockade, it is from Saudi Arabia – ironic though it may be – that Qatar stands to learn important lessons.

Saudi Arabia’s scaling up of domestic wheat production – initially to achieve self-sufficiency and then to support a prosperous export industry – was ultimately a failed effort. The unsustainable extraction of groundwater – fuelled by generous subsidies for wheat producers and the nominal cost of diesel for pumping – brought the country’s water table to the brink of collapse, and the government was forced to make a dramatic U-turn, reducing then removing the subsidies and shrinking its wheat sector.

The UAE also provides an instructive example for how domestic food production may be supported – this time positive. This summer, the Department of Environment in Abu Dhabi announced its Recycled Water Policy, laying out a policy framework to promote and facilitate reused water across all major sectors, including agriculture.

Back in 2014, the Ministry of Climate Change and Environment set hydroponics as a key priority, launching a 100 million Emirati dirham fund to incentivize and support farmers establishing hydroponic farms. And the International Center for Biosaline Agriculture, based in Dubai and supported by the UAE government, undertakes pioneering research into sustainable food production in saline environments.

On the face of it, Qatar has indeed bounced back from the blockade. As and when cross-border trade is re-established with Saudi Arabia, Qatar will boast a more diverse – and more resilient – network of trade relationships than it did prior to June 2017.

In addition to investment in domestic food production, the blockade also provoked a rapid recalibration of Qatar’s trade relationships. Allies in the region – most notably Turkey and Iran – were quick to come to Qatar’s assistance, delivering fresh produce by air. Since then, Qatar has scaled up its trading relationship with both countries.

It has also leveraged its position as the world’s largest exporter of liquid natural gas to establish new maritime trade lines with major food exporters, including India. Should tensions spike again in the future, it will be in a stronger position to weather the storm.

But, in the absence of a commitment to support the widespread adoption of circular agricultural technologies and practices, Qatar’s commitment to increasing its self-sufficiency and expanding its domestic production could ultimately undermine its long-term food security.

Rising average temperatures and increasingly frequent extreme weather events – like the heatwave in 2010 when temperatures soared to over 50°C – will exacerbate already high resource stress in the country. Unsustainable exploitation of finite land, water and energy reserves will limit the country’s long-term capacity to produce food and weaken its ability to withstand future disruptions to regional and international supply channels.

As Qatar continues in its efforts to secure a reliable food supply, it would do well to heed the experience of its neighbours, be they friend or foe.

African policymakers face a dilemma when it comes to COVID-19. The first hope is to prevent the virus from gaining a foothold at all, and many African states have significant experience of managing infectious disease outbreaks. The establishment of the Africa Centre for Disease Control highlights the hugely increased focus on public health in recent years.

But capacities to track, test and isolate vary wildly, notably between neighbours with porous and poorly controlled borders and, in most cases, sustained national-level disease control is difficult. Initial clusters of COVID-19 cases are already established in many places, but a lack of testing capacity makes it hard to know the full extent of transmission.

It is not obvious what African states should do as a response. Lack of information about COVID-19 means the proportion of asymptomatic or mild cases is not known, still less the ways in which this is influenced by human geography and demographics.

Africa is an overwhelmingly young continent with a median age under 20. But it also faces chronic malnutrition, which may weaken immune responses, and infectious diseases such as malaria, TB and HIV are widespread which could worsen the impact of COVID-19, particularly if treatment for these diseases is interrupted.

Complex and unknown

Ultimately, how all these factors interact with COVID-19 is complex and remains largely unknown. Africa may escape with a relatively light toll. Or it could be hit harder than anywhere else.

What is clear, however, is that cost of simply following the rest of the world into lockdown could be high. Africa is relatively rural but has higher populations living in informal settlements than anywhere in the world. Many live in cramped and overcrowded accommodation without clean water or reliable electricity, making handwashing a challenge and working from home impossible.

And the benefits appear limited. The goal of lockdowns in most places is not to eliminate the virus but to accept the economic and social costs as a price worth paying in order to ‘flatten the curve’ of infection and protect healthcare systems from being overwhelmed. But this logic does not hold when many of Africa’s healthcare systems are barely coping with pre-coronavirus levels of disease.

Africa suffers in comparison to much of the rest of the world in terms of access to quality and affordable healthcare, critical care beds and specialist personnel. For example, in 2017, Nigeria had just 120 ICU beds for a country of 200 million, equating to 0.07 per 100,000 inhabitants compared to 12.5 per 100,000 in Italy and 3.6 per 100,000 in China.

The pandemic’s ruinous economic impacts could also be more acute for Africa than anywhere else. The continent is highly vulnerable to potential drops in output and relies heavily on demand from China and Europe. Many states are already facing sharply falling natural resource revenues, and investment, tourism and remittances will suffer - all on top of a high existing debt burden.

Analysis by the World Bank shows that Africa will likely face its first recession in 25 years, with the continental economy contracting by up to 5.1% in 2020. Africa will have scant financial ammunition to use in the fight against COVID-19 with currencies weakening, food prices rising, local agri-food supply chains disrupted and food imports likely to decrease as well. A food security emergency appears a strong possibility.

So, although several states have imposed national lockdowns and others closed major urban centres, lockdowns are difficult to manage and sustain, especially in places where the daily hustle of the informal sector or subsistence agriculture are the only means of survival and where the state has neither the trust of the population nor the capacity to replace lost earnings or meet basic needs.

Of course, this is not simply a binary choice between lockdown or no lockdown - a range of intermediate options exist, such as some restriction on movement, curfews, shutting places of worship, banning only large gatherings, or closing pubs, schools and borders.

A significant number of African states have so far taken this middle path. This will not prevent the virus from spreading nor, in all probability, be enough to ensure adequate healthcare for all Africans infected with COVID-19. But it may help slow the spread and buy invaluable time for African states and partners to prepare.

How this time is used is therefore of paramount importance. Popular trust in the state is low in many African countries so strategies must empower communities, not alienate them. Africa’s experience of previous epidemics and long traditions of collective resilience and community-based crisis response - which persist in many places – are significant strengths.

The right messages must be carried by the right messengers, and policies - including cash transfers and food distribution - implemented sensitively. If not, or if responses become militarized, public consent is unlikely to be sustained for long.

African policymakers face a dilemma when it comes to COVID-19. The first hope is to prevent the virus from gaining a foothold at all, and many African states have significant experience of managing infectious disease outbreaks. The establishment of the Africa Centre for Disease Control highlights the hugely increased focus on public health in recent years.

But capacities to track, test and isolate vary wildly, notably between neighbours with porous and poorly controlled borders and, in most cases, sustained national-level disease control is difficult. Initial clusters of COVID-19 cases are already established in many places, but a lack of testing capacity makes it hard to know the full extent of transmission.

It is not obvious what African states should do as a response. Lack of information about COVID-19 means the proportion of asymptomatic or mild cases is not known, still less the ways in which this is influenced by human geography and demographics.

Africa is an overwhelmingly young continent with a median age under 20. But it also faces chronic malnutrition, which may weaken immune responses, and infectious diseases such as malaria, TB and HIV are widespread which could worsen the impact of COVID-19, particularly if treatment for these diseases is interrupted.

Complex and unknown

Ultimately, how all these factors interact with COVID-19 is complex and remains largely unknown. Africa may escape with a relatively light toll. Or it could be hit harder than anywhere else.

What is clear, however, is that cost of simply following the rest of the world into lockdown could be high. Africa is relatively rural but has higher populations living in informal settlements than anywhere in the world. Many live in cramped and overcrowded accommodation without clean water or reliable electricity, making handwashing a challenge and working from home impossible.

And the benefits appear limited. The goal of lockdowns in most places is not to eliminate the virus but to accept the economic and social costs as a price worth paying in order to ‘flatten the curve’ of infection and protect healthcare systems from being overwhelmed. But this logic does not hold when many of Africa’s healthcare systems are barely coping with pre-coronavirus levels of disease.

Africa suffers in comparison to much of the rest of the world in terms of access to quality and affordable healthcare, critical care beds and specialist personnel. For example, in 2017, Nigeria had just 120 ICU beds for a country of 200 million, equating to 0.07 per 100,000 inhabitants compared to 12.5 per 100,000 in Italy and 3.6 per 100,000 in China.

The pandemic’s ruinous economic impacts could also be more acute for Africa than anywhere else. The continent is highly vulnerable to potential drops in output and relies heavily on demand from China and Europe. Many states are already facing sharply falling natural resource revenues, and investment, tourism and remittances will suffer - all on top of a high existing debt burden.

Analysis by the World Bank shows that Africa will likely face its first recession in 25 years, with the continental economy contracting by up to 5.1% in 2020. Africa will have scant financial ammunition to use in the fight against COVID-19 with currencies weakening, food prices rising, local agri-food supply chains disrupted and food imports likely to decrease as well. A food security emergency appears a strong possibility.

So, although several states have imposed national lockdowns and others closed major urban centres, lockdowns are difficult to manage and sustain, especially in places where the daily hustle of the informal sector or subsistence agriculture are the only means of survival and where the state has neither the trust of the population nor the capacity to replace lost earnings or meet basic needs.

Of course, this is not simply a binary choice between lockdown or no lockdown - a range of intermediate options exist, such as some restriction on movement, curfews, shutting places of worship, banning only large gatherings, or closing pubs, schools and borders.

A significant number of African states have so far taken this middle path. This will not prevent the virus from spreading nor, in all probability, be enough to ensure adequate healthcare for all Africans infected with COVID-19. But it may help slow the spread and buy invaluable time for African states and partners to prepare.

How this time is used is therefore of paramount importance. Popular trust in the state is low in many African countries so strategies must empower communities, not alienate them. Africa’s experience of previous epidemics and long traditions of collective resilience and community-based crisis response - which persist in many places – are significant strengths.

The right messages must be carried by the right messengers, and policies - including cash transfers and food distribution - implemented sensitively. If not, or if responses become militarized, public consent is unlikely to be sustained for long.

African policymakers face a dilemma when it comes to COVID-19. The first hope is to prevent the virus from gaining a foothold at all, and many African states have significant experience of managing infectious disease outbreaks. The establishment of the Africa Centre for Disease Control highlights the hugely increased focus on public health in recent years.

But capacities to track, test and isolate vary wildly, notably between neighbours with porous and poorly controlled borders and, in most cases, sustained national-level disease control is difficult. Initial clusters of COVID-19 cases are already established in many places, but a lack of testing capacity makes it hard to know the full extent of transmission.

It is not obvious what African states should do as a response. Lack of information about COVID-19 means the proportion of asymptomatic or mild cases is not known, still less the ways in which this is influenced by human geography and demographics.

Africa is an overwhelmingly young continent with a median age under 20. But it also faces chronic malnutrition, which may weaken immune responses, and infectious diseases such as malaria, TB and HIV are widespread which could worsen the impact of COVID-19, particularly if treatment for these diseases is interrupted.

Complex and unknown

Ultimately, how all these factors interact with COVID-19 is complex and remains largely unknown. Africa may escape with a relatively light toll. Or it could be hit harder than anywhere else.

What is clear, however, is that cost of simply following the rest of the world into lockdown could be high. Africa is relatively rural but has higher populations living in informal settlements than anywhere in the world. Many live in cramped and overcrowded accommodation without clean water or reliable electricity, making handwashing a challenge and working from home impossible.

And the benefits appear limited. The goal of lockdowns in most places is not to eliminate the virus but to accept the economic and social costs as a price worth paying in order to ‘flatten the curve’ of infection and protect healthcare systems from being overwhelmed. But this logic does not hold when many of Africa’s healthcare systems are barely coping with pre-coronavirus levels of disease.

Africa suffers in comparison to much of the rest of the world in terms of access to quality and affordable healthcare, critical care beds and specialist personnel. For example, in 2017, Nigeria had just 120 ICU beds for a country of 200 million, equating to 0.07 per 100,000 inhabitants compared to 12.5 per 100,000 in Italy and 3.6 per 100,000 in China.

The pandemic’s ruinous economic impacts could also be more acute for Africa than anywhere else. The continent is highly vulnerable to potential drops in output and relies heavily on demand from China and Europe. Many states are already facing sharply falling natural resource revenues, and investment, tourism and remittances will suffer - all on top of a high existing debt burden.

Analysis by the World Bank shows that Africa will likely face its first recession in 25 years, with the continental economy contracting by up to 5.1% in 2020. Africa will have scant financial ammunition to use in the fight against COVID-19 with currencies weakening, food prices rising, local agri-food supply chains disrupted and food imports likely to decrease as well. A food security emergency appears a strong possibility.

So, although several states have imposed national lockdowns and others closed major urban centres, lockdowns are difficult to manage and sustain, especially in places where the daily hustle of the informal sector or subsistence agriculture are the only means of survival and where the state has neither the trust of the population nor the capacity to replace lost earnings or meet basic needs.

Of course, this is not simply a binary choice between lockdown or no lockdown - a range of intermediate options exist, such as some restriction on movement, curfews, shutting places of worship, banning only large gatherings, or closing pubs, schools and borders.

A significant number of African states have so far taken this middle path. This will not prevent the virus from spreading nor, in all probability, be enough to ensure adequate healthcare for all Africans infected with COVID-19. But it may help slow the spread and buy invaluable time for African states and partners to prepare.

How this time is used is therefore of paramount importance. Popular trust in the state is low in many African countries so strategies must empower communities, not alienate them. Africa’s experience of previous epidemics and long traditions of collective resilience and community-based crisis response - which persist in many places – are significant strengths.

The right messages must be carried by the right messengers, and policies - including cash transfers and food distribution - implemented sensitively. If not, or if responses become militarized, public consent is unlikely to be sustained for long.

As the international community looks to the period beyond the UN Copenhagen agreements on climate change, attention is focusing on the finance for implementing global emissions reductions on the ground. The requirement for significantly scaled-up investment into the solutions to climate change is a central issue, often characterized as investment flows into 'low carbon technologies'.

This paper draws on five years of insights from mainstream financiers leading the exponential growth in renewable energy investment, and key issues for policy-makers seeking to foster conditions for even greater investment are identified.

Earlier this month, Sheikh Tamim – the emir of Qatar – hailed the country’s success in overcoming the impacts of the embargo levied by the so-called Arab Quartet – Bahrain, Egypt, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates (UAE). Qatar will post a budget surplus for the first time in three years, and the country’s long-term plan for economic diversification has taken great strides, according to the emir. Key among the achievements cited was the advancement of Qatar’s domestic food industry.

When the blockade was introduced in June 2017, it threw the vulnerability of Qatar’s domestic food supply to outside interruption into sharp relief. Qatar is poorly suited to growing food. The desert country ranks as the most water-stressed in the world. As one of the hottest, most arid countries in the world, trade is critical to feeding the nation; over 90 per cent of its food supply is imported.

Most of Qatar’s cereal imports – including 80 per cent of its wheat supply – arrive by sea from exporters including India, Russia and Australia. Sitting on the eastern edge of the Persian Gulf, Qatar’s only maritime gateway to the world is the Strait of Hormuz. This narrow body of water can, as events this summer have shown, be disrupted by geopolitical events. But for 40 per cent of overall food imports, overland trade from Saudi Arabia was Qatar’s primary supply channel before June 2017 – particularly so for dairy products and fresh fruit and vegetables coming from the EU, Turkey and Jordan.

The abrupt closure of Saudi Arabia’s borders prompted significant private investment in Qatar’s own food industry; domestic production has reportedly increased four-fold since the blockade was introduced. Prior to the blockade, Qatar imported 85 per cent of its vegetables; it now hopes to produce 60 per cent within the next three years. Perhaps even more remarkably, the country is now self-sufficient in dairy, having previously relied on imports for 72 per cent of its supply.

This progress has come at a cost. Qatar’s booming domestic industry is highly resource-intensive. To fill the gap in the dairy sector, Baladna – the country’s principal dairy producer – imported around 18,000 Holstein dairy cows from the EU and US. The company is thriving; in June of this year, it made its first dairy exports.

But the desert is not a natural environment for these cows; they must be kept indoors, at temperatures around 15°C cooler than the outside air, and misted with water to prevent overheating. The cooling systems are a huge drain on local resources. Each dairy cow requires an average of 185 gallons of water a day, almost twice the volume used by the average Qatari household. The majority of this water comes from oil- or gas-powered desalination plants; the cooling systems themselves run on gas-fired electricity.

Qatar has traditionally invested in production overseas – particularly in Sudan and Tanzania – to secure its fodder supply, but the government has plans to become self-sufficient in fodder crops such as lucerne (alfalfa) and Rhodes grass. This will require irrigation on a vast scale. Qatar’s farmland is mostly located in the north of the country where it benefits from aquifers; fodder production already accounts for half of the groundwater extracted for use in agriculture.

Despite commitments made under the National Food Security Programme to improving the water efficiency of Qatar’s food production, the rate of draw-down of these aquifers exceeds their recharge rates. Overexploitation has resulted in saline intrusion, threatening their long-term viability. With 92 per cent of all extracted groundwater given to farmers free of charge, there is little incentive for economizing on its use.

Increasing production will also likely mean increasing fertilizer use; rates of fertilizer use in Qatar are among the highest in the world, second only to those in Singapore.

Both government and industry are taking small steps to ‘green’ the country’s food production. Certain local authorities plan to ban the use of groundwater for fodder production by 2025, requiring producers to use treated sewage water instead and reserving the use of groundwater for crop production.

A number of companies are also adopting so-called ‘circular’ practices to achieve more efficienct resource use; Agrico, a major vegetable producer, has expanded its organic hydroponics operations, a move the company reports has led to a 90 per cent reduction in water use. But, with a target to produce up to 50 per cent of Qatar’s fresh food supply domestically within just a few years, scattered examples of resource-saving strategies will not be enough to mitigate the rise in water demand.

As Qatar looks to continue growing its food industry in the wake of the blockade, it is from Saudi Arabia – ironic though it may be – that Qatar stands to learn important lessons.

Saudi Arabia’s scaling up of domestic wheat production – initially to achieve self-sufficiency and then to support a prosperous export industry – was ultimately a failed effort. The unsustainable extraction of groundwater – fuelled by generous subsidies for wheat producers and the nominal cost of diesel for pumping – brought the country’s water table to the brink of collapse, and the government was forced to make a dramatic U-turn, reducing then removing the subsidies and shrinking its wheat sector.

The UAE also provides an instructive example for how domestic food production may be supported – this time positive. This summer, the Department of Environment in Abu Dhabi announced its Recycled Water Policy, laying out a policy framework to promote and facilitate reused water across all major sectors, including agriculture.

Back in 2014, the Ministry of Climate Change and Environment set hydroponics as a key priority, launching a 100 million Emirati dirham fund to incentivize and support farmers establishing hydroponic farms. And the International Center for Biosaline Agriculture, based in Dubai and supported by the UAE government, undertakes pioneering research into sustainable food production in saline environments.

On the face of it, Qatar has indeed bounced back from the blockade. As and when cross-border trade is re-established with Saudi Arabia, Qatar will boast a more diverse – and more resilient – network of trade relationships than it did prior to June 2017.

In addition to investment in domestic food production, the blockade also provoked a rapid recalibration of Qatar’s trade relationships. Allies in the region – most notably Turkey and Iran – were quick to come to Qatar’s assistance, delivering fresh produce by air. Since then, Qatar has scaled up its trading relationship with both countries.

It has also leveraged its position as the world’s largest exporter of liquid natural gas to establish new maritime trade lines with major food exporters, including India. Should tensions spike again in the future, it will be in a stronger position to weather the storm.

But, in the absence of a commitment to support the widespread adoption of circular agricultural technologies and practices, Qatar’s commitment to increasing its self-sufficiency and expanding its domestic production could ultimately undermine its long-term food security.

Rising average temperatures and increasingly frequent extreme weather events – like the heatwave in 2010 when temperatures soared to over 50°C – will exacerbate already high resource stress in the country. Unsustainable exploitation of finite land, water and energy reserves will limit the country’s long-term capacity to produce food and weaken its ability to withstand future disruptions to regional and international supply channels.

As Qatar continues in its efforts to secure a reliable food supply, it would do well to heed the experience of its neighbours, be they friend or foe.