IN A SPRAWLING FARM COMPLEX IN the desert north of Doha, more than 300 cows occupy a warehouse, munching on piles of grass. In one pen sits a group of newborn calves, gangly legs folded, ears twitching. The cows make no sound at all, apart from a gentle rustling.
These Holsteins are here because of a geopolitical crisis in the Middle East. After Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain and Egypt imposed heavy sanctions on Qatar on June 5, a Qatari company launched an airlift of hundreds of cows to safeguard milk supplies, since an embargo cut into dairy imports. “My instructions were we needed cows yesterday,” says John Joseph Dore, a 57-year-old Irishman and the CEO of Baladna, the farm where the cows now reside. Wearing a straw…