German Cows to be Flown to Qatar to Meet Dairy Demand
QATAR - A herd of 140 German cows will be flown to Qatar this week to help the country meet its dairy demand as it struggles under the Saudi-led blockade.
11 July 2017
2 minute read
The first shipment of cattle will be followed by additional flights over the next few days, with over 4,000 cows from Germany, Australia, and the US expected to arrive by the end of this week.
Given Qatar's desert climate, with daily temperatures reaching at least 114 degrees Fahrenheit (46 degrees Celsius), and lack of grazing pasture, the cows will be kept in air-conditioned hangars in the desert.
According to Telesur, the complete delivery is expected to take 60 flights and will hit the records books as the biggest airlift of livestock ever attempted.
The initiative comes as Qatar vows to ride out the isolation imposed on it by fellow Arab states.
Until recently, the middle eastern country imported 90 percent of its food, keeping only two days worth of water in reserve. With neighboring countries closing their borders, Qatar has been forced to look for new food sources, depending heavily on its Turkish and Iranian allies for the majority of its resources.
The plan to airlift cows was developed by Moutaz al-Khayyat, a businessman and the chairman of Power International Holding, who says he hopes it will help Qatar become a self-sustaining producer in the dairy industry.
Mr Al- Khayyat originally came up with his plan years ago, but due to the current situation, he decided to accelerate the initiative.
“The crisis is giving new opportunities for local businessmen to increase their business and open up new lines of work,” he said.
In an interview with The Sunday Telegraph, Qatar’s Ambassador to Moscow, Fahad al Attiyah compared the initiative to the Berlin airlift of 1948, when West Berlin broke the Soviet blockade with a brigade of supply flights soaring in from Tempelhof airport.
“The point the Western world wanted to make was: we will make Berlin survive despite the siege that it faces,” he said. “It’s not practicality or pragmatism, it’s about ideology. If the price of Qatar’s independence is to airlift every single pint of milk then we will do so.”
Despite the loss of its trade partners, the small country home to a rich natural gas reserve as well as America’s biggest military base in the Middle East is standing strong developing its relationships with outside countries.
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