Manama: Qatar aims to meet the growing demand of fodder with the help of new "biosaline" technology.
The cutting- edge technology allows plants to be successfully grown on saline lands and the process will help Qatar reclaim a large chunk of its land affected by salinity, a Ministry of Environment document said.
According to the report, the technique was successfully demonstrated at the Bio-Saline Agricultural Research Station on Dukhan Sabkha land, Qatar Tribune daily reports on Sunday.
Under the pilot project, fodder was successfully grown on a piece of land having high concentration of salt. This may become a boon for Qatar and help the country in achieving self-sufficiency in fodder production.
"Fodder has been produced from selected salt tolerant plants grown on Dukhan Sabkha land near Zikreet Camp using treated sewage water," the documents said. "An estimated one square kilometre area of Sabkha land (100 ha) may produce 3500 tonnes of fresh biomass of certain salt tolerant varieties by using four million cubic metres of sewage water."
The bio-saline technology is much cheaper than the chemical treatment process of land reclamation. Currently, Qatar produces 6,000 tonnes of fodder per year against the demand of 35,000 tonnes.
More than 300 agricultural farms have been abandoned due to high salinity in soils.
"Currently, 833 square kms of the Sabkha land have no vegetation except for some holophytic plants due to high salt concentration and contamination of the underground water table," according to the document.
"More than 60 million cubic metre of treated sewage water is produced in Qatar, which is partly used for landscaping and the rest is dumped in the desert for ground water recharge. This water can be used for irrigation purposes and for draining out soils having high concentration of salts. All the reclaimed land can be used for fodder biomass production."
