Once upon time (in 2017, actually) there were no cows in Qatar. Today, there are 25 000 milk-producing cows and it’s all thanks to a political blockade, visionary leadership and the biggest bovine airlift in history.

I call this “The flying cow story of Qatar”.

The happy-ever-after ending can be viewed at Baladna Farm, about 50 minutes’ drive north of Doha.

It’s a worthwhile trip and entry is free.

There is, however, an entertainment park and zoo for children, a family restaurant and shop selling 250 different Baladna products which means you really should have your wallet with you).

But first, please put aside any stereotypical visuals of rolling green hills with plump dairy cows happily chewing the cud. We’re in a desert, and things can be weird and wonderful here …

(As an aside, I marvel at educational school trips for youngsters in the Middle East. They must be so different to those in our own African, European and American countries!)

Anyway, back to the story of the flying cows.

Necessity is the mother of flying cows

They say that necessity is the mother of all invention. With a blockade of Qatar by her neighbours in the Gulf, who were also the main suppliers of fresh produce, including dairy, the country was forced to fast-track its food sustainability programme.

Overnight Qatar lost access to 18 cities in the four blockading nations of Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain and Egypt.

(Reasons for the blockade are shared near the end of this post.)

At the time, close to 90% of its vegetables and 80% of the country’s dairy produce were imported.

The blockade brought the country’s vulnerability into sharp relief.

Qatar quickly had to develop alternative trade links and flight routes and produce its own food supplies or see its 2.7 million residents go hungry and leave.

In such times in South Africa, a “boer maak ‘n plan” (a farmer makes a plan). In Qatar, it was a pair of businessmen brothers who hatched a head-shaking bovine plan.

The dairy dash

As the story goes, Syrian brothers Moutaz and Ramad al Khanyyat put up their hands to take Qatar out of its cow crisis.

They swiftly organised and paid for specially transfigured transport planes from Qatar Airways to fly in 165 Holstein cows from Germany to Qatar, just days after the blockade began.

Every two to three days thereafter, more cows arrived “blinking into the desert sunlight” until there were 4000 cows, and milk production in Qatar could get underway.

According to newspaper reports at the time, altogether 60 cows-carrying flights came in from Germany, the United States and Australia.

By mid-July, little more than a month after the blockade began, the new arrivals were helping to meet a third of Qatar’s dairy produce needs.

Cow vision 

Of course, the large-udder newcomers did not just meander into meadows or out into the desert in search of the odd shrub. Instead, they found themselves in massive, air-conditioned hangars.

Additional generators, AC units, stalls and milking equipment had to be urgently built or imported from those countries still on trading terms with Qatar.

But this was not going to stop the brothers.

They were already in the fresh produce business with their then 40 000 sheep and 5 000 goats, which were also responsible for milk production.

Dairy cows had always been part of their long-term plans.

Or to quote Moutaz: “It’s not about practicability 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.”

Beliefs and principles aside, the brothers also had “deep pockets” to implement their vision of food sustainability and independence for Qatar.

Cow health

Apart from setting up a massive dairy overnight, there was and is the wellbeing of the cows to consider.

Raising cows to produce milk in a country where the temperature can reach 50C comes with its own challenges.

Fortunately, technology and money means cows can live a comfortable milk-producing life inside a shed.

Qatar’s 25 000 cows live in 40 massive barns, covering an area of 70 soccer fields. The barns also have misting and cooling machines and the cows can rest on beds of cooled sand … yes, sand, not straw or grass.

There are apparently two strips of green grass running through the middle of the massive set-up …

But it still feels a bit like a battery farm for cows to me. There, I’ve said it.

I know the desert environment makes this what it is. The cows may know no difference, especially the new calves, but I know the difference (that cows are meant to munch away in the great green outdoors), so it’s hard to get my head around it.

Visit Baladna Farm

I am told by those who were here during the blockade, which ended in 2020, just ahead of the COVID-19 pandemic, that you cannot imagine Baladna without the blockade.

Baladna exists as it does today because of the three-year tiff among Arab allies.

Today, Baladna not only supplies all of Qatar’s dairy needs, but exports to Oman, Yemen, Jordan and Afghanistan.

Baladna Farm is set up to receive visitors, especially families with young children. There is good parking, signage, and the staff are helpful.

At the Baladna Farm you can enjoy:

• A fun park (QAR35) for adults and QAR55 for children aged 3 to 13
• A petting zoo
• Horse riding
• Ziplining
• A restaurant
• A shop selling all Baladna’s produce
• A glimpse of cow life in the Middle East, including milking.

It is the latter we’d come to experience.

Keeping Qatar in milk

The story of the flying cows, and so much more, is shared in captioned photographs, infographics and via a video. You watch this while seated on straw bales.

These are interesting, but most impressive is the cow milking carousel taking its charges on an eight-minute, one-revolution ride.

During the circular trip the cows are milked and auto cleaned, while their produce is simultaneously checked for abnormalities. This is all achieved in line with international hygiene standards in the milk production industry.  

The carousel or automated milking parlour operates throughout most of the day, and there are seven of them.

As shared, Baladna now than meets Qatar’s fresh milk produce supplies.

Cow and Baladna fast facts

• Holstein cows originate from Northern Holland and Germany
• Holstein cows are acknowledged as the highest producing dairy animals in the world
• Cows produce between 30 and 40 litres a day
• Adult cows weigh between 400 and 500kg
• Baladna was established as a subsidiary of the Power Holdings Group in 2013
• By 2021 Baladna was worth $212m (R3.9bn), and make $18m profit (R186.7m).

Reasons for the blockade

All stories depend on who is telling them and why. This, in short, means you will get many different answers to the blockade question, dependent on the storyteller.  (Of course, this is how history is captured too!)

In my online and in-person quizzing to try to understand why Qatar’s Arabic neighbours shut shop on them, I discovered the following:

• There is a long history of rivalry among the Arabic nations as is shared in the National Museum of Qatar
• Qatar was deemed to be “a state sponsor of terrorism”. Qatar was ostracised for allegedly funding rebel groups
• The pint-sized peninsula country had become too big for its boots
• The blockade caused huge difficulties for Qataris married to Saudis and so forth
• Qatar was uncomfortable with the UAE’s lax adherence to its Islamic faith  

• Thankfully, relations have thawed and there is much better co-operation between the Gulf countries today. Hundreds of Saudis pop across the border into Qatar every weekend and talks to build a bridge to Bahrain for better access between the two countries have been reignited.