Hassad Food is an investment arm of the

Qatar Investment Authority The Qatar Investment Authority (QIA; ar, جهاز قطر للإستثمار) is Qatar's sovereign wealth fund. The QIA was founded by the State of Qatar in 2005 to strengthen the country's economy by diversifying into new asset classes. In 2021 ...

with a primary focus on the field of

agriculture Agriculture or farming is the practice of cultivating plants and livestock. Agriculture was the key development in the rise of sedentary human civilization, whereby farming of domesticated species created food surpluses that enabled people to ...

. The company has the stated goal of meeting 60% of Qatar's food demand.

History

Hassad Food was established in 2008 with the aim of attaining food self-sufficiency for

Qatar Qatar (, ; ar, قطر, Qaṭar ; local vernacular pronunciation: ), officially the State of Qatar,) is a country in Western Asia. It occupies the Qatar Peninsula on the northeastern coast of the Arabian Peninsula in the Middle East; it sh ...

Investments

It was announced in June 2013 that the company was planning on investing $500 million in

India India, officially the Republic of India (Hindi: ), is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by area, the second-most populous country, and the most populous democracy in the world. Bounded by the Indian Ocean on the so ...

in order to secure the production of coffee, rice and cardamom. As part of this objective, the company acquired majority ownership of Indian food production company Bush Foods Overseas Ltd in April 2013. In December 2014, Hassad Food submitted a

First Information Report __NOTOC__ A first information report (FIR) is a document prepared by police organisations in Indian subcontinent and Southeast Asian countries including Myanmar, India, Bangladesh and Pakistan when they receive information about the commissio ...

against Bush Food Overseas Ltd on the basis that they had allegedly falsified their financial statements and inventory records. Hassad Food officially declared its intent to invest $400 million into Turkey's agriculture industry in October 2014. In April 2015, the company revealed its plans to invest $1 billion in

Sudan Sudan ( or ; ar, السودان, as-Sūdān, officially the Republic of the Sudan ( ar, جمهورية السودان, link=no, Jumhūriyyat as-Sūdān), is a country in Northeast Africa. It shares borders with the Central African Republic t ...

Subsidiaries

Hassad Australia

Established in November 2009, the company's Oceania-based subsidiary ''Hassad Australia'' represents its first significant overseas investment. In October 2013, Hassad Australia's annual production output was estimated to be 100,000 sheep and 150,000 tonnes of grain. As of June 2014, Hassad Australia owns thirteen farms measuring 750,000 ha. in Australia for the purposes of sheep and wheat production. The company's total investment in Australia's agriculture industry was valued at a reported $500 million as of 2015. Criticism has been leveled at the company's

land grabbing Land grabbing is the contentious issue of large-scale land acquisitions: the buying or leasing of large pieces of land by domestic and transnational companies, governments, and individuals. While used broadly throughout history, land grabbing as ...

activities within Australia. Up to 2017, Hassad Food had invested more than $500 million to buy prime agricultural land in Australia, to own 3,000 square kilometres, with five properties in New South Wales, one in Victoria, one in Queensland, three in South Australia and three in Western Australia. The company is proposing to invest another $500 million in Australia. Senator Bernardi has said, "We can have a debate and a discussion about the wisdom of foreign ownership of some of our strategic assets, but I do not know how anyone can justify a government that is recognised by its peers and our allies as the funder of terrorism owning such resources in our own country".

Zulal Oasis

Zulal Oasis was formed as a subsidiary of Hassad Food in 2013, as a joint venture with Oasis Agrotechnology, S.L, a Spanish company that is a consortium of four Spanish companies in Almería, Spain. Oasis and its constituent companies have more than 30,000 hectares under cultivation in Almería. Oasis was responsible for adapting the proprietary hydroponic technology of one of its members for use in the unique environmental conditions in the Gulf, i.e., very high summer temperatures together with high humidity. Zulal Oasis has achieved year round production of vegetables, which is unique in Qatar, by developing a dry air cooling system that uses no water, unlike commonly used evaporative cooling systems. As much as 87% of Zulal Oasis vegetable produce is classified in the top band of EU grading standards, and less than 1% of vegetable produce is rejected. Agricultural yield per unit of water used is highest using Zulal Oasis technology, compared to both other greenhouse technologies and open field cultivation. Because an aggregate of 98% of Qatar's fruit and vegetable imports is imported via one road from Saudi Arabia, Zulal Oasis has the primary goal of reaching 50 to 70 percent vegetable self-sufficiency for Qatar. The company's primary facility is a research and development

greenhouse A greenhouse (also called a glasshouse, or, if with sufficient heating, a hothouse) is a structure with walls and roof made chiefly of Transparent ceramics, transparent material, such as glass, in which plants requiring regulated climatic condit ...

Al-Shahaniya Al Shahaniya ( ar, الشحانية, Ash Shīḩānīyah) is a municipality (3299 km2) in Qatar, with its municipal seat has a city of the same name (39 km2). Formerly in the municipality of Al Rayyan, but now an independent municipali ...

which uses a specially designed dry air cooling system and crop growing system. This system is intended to be more cost-effective while also broadening the scope of viable crop options. Around 200 hectares of land are allocated to the company.

References