With the 2022 football World Cup approaching, desert Qatar is dressing up in every way. It lacks nothing in wealth and glamour; its only shortage is greenery. To add green, government and private sectors are working hard, and entrepreneurs have built rich nurseries. The nursery trade is booming.

Qatar, on the Persian Gulf, covers 11,437 square kilometres, about one-fourteenth of Bangladesh. It has no natural water bodies and few plants and animals. Its population has grown from 70,000 in 1960 to more than 2.6 million today, 90 per cent of them foreigners. By the Ministry of Development Planning and Statistics (MDPS), citizens of 87 countries live there; Indians are the largest group at 650,000, or 25 per cent, and Bangladeshis make up 10.8 per cent of the population. Local Qataris are only 12.1 per cent, or 313,000 people.

At the Plaza Hollandi nursery in Umm Salal Ali, the biggest challenge is soil, so peat moss and other media, mostly from the Netherlands, Germany and Italy, are used instead. Huge plants, shaped in bonsai style, are grown for indoor or outdoor use as buyers want. The nursery is owned by Hans, a 70-year-old Dutch entrepreneur, but the biggest contribution comes from Abdul Karim of Kulaura, Moulvibazar, who went to Qatar in 1999 and is now its manager and partner.

The nursery runs like a factory. Flowering and ornamental plants come from 35 countries; Karim says the nursery meets 30 per cent of the country's demand and supplies flowers to the royal family daily. Workers in protective suits apply pesticides, a practice worth following on large plantations. Most workers are skilled Bangladeshi expatriates, many brought in by Karim, alongside workers from Sri Lanka, Nepal and India.

Karim says Bangladesh could join this huge trade. Items sold at high prices in Qatar, from large plastic tubs to materials for rooftop and yard farming and decorating homes with plants, could be supplied by Bangladesh far more cheaply.

As urban farming grows at home, demand for the nursery industry is rising. Planned entry into this trade could support urban greening, and exports to the Middle East and beyond could earn large amounts of foreign currency, Seraj writes, if the obstacles are removed.

Source: Shykh Seraj. First published in Bengali on The Agro News.