Municipality ministry partners with QRDI to face agricultural challenges

 

 

The Ministry of Municipality has launched the "Innovation opportunity" in partnership with Qatar Research Development and Innovation Council (QRDI) in pursuit of addressing the key agricultural challenges, whether locally, regionally or internationally within the framework of Qatar Open Innovation (QOI) programme, QNA reported.By launching this opportunity via QOI, the ministry seeks to explore an appropriate innovative technology which is adaptable to operate in the climate conditions of Qatar to further address the challenges facing the early detection of Red Palm Weevil (RPW) in all regions across the state.This will ensure that such technologies fulfil the actual height of the palm tree, which can reach roughly 20 metres, provided that the innovative technology shall cost-effectively screen every palm tree along with the possibility of remotely applying this technology.The co-operation between the ministry and QRDI aims to explore innovative solutions to detect the RPW in its early stage of life cycle prior to reaching advanced stage, to have an ample opportunity for controlling it and avoid damage to the palm trees, because Qatar has over a million palm trees in the public and private farms, including roughly 13,000 palm trees in the public farms.Director of Planning and Quality Department at the Ministry of Municipality Eng Suleiman Saeed Abdullah underlined that the current innovation opportunity offered by the ministry in partnership with QOI, an affiliate of QRDI, is one of the numerous opportunities that will be laid out in the future to counter the challenges facing the ministry. He hoped that the ministry will obtain the best and state-of-the-art technologies to control RPW with the objective of conserving palm trees which are considered a national slogan and symbol for Qatar. The council will be the entity vested with the power to grant the innovators the opportunity to test their innovations to be further launched in the regional and global markets.QRDI launched QOI early this year with the objective of inviting the local and global innovators to present the technological innovations that evidently fulfil the needs of the major local enterprises and government entities in Qatar.