More than 70 percent of the population live in rural areas but only three percent of Yemen is considered to be arable land, which means that more humanitarian relief efforts are needed to strengthen agriculture to support households that rely on farming as their single source of food.
Ridwan Mihdi is a farmer in Tuban, Lahj in Yemen. This is his story and his account of how his life changed for the better, in his own words.
Ridwan was one of the 240 farmers who received training in farming practices, and irrigation networks through the Project to Fund Smallholder Agricultural Productivity Restoration & Enhancement Project funded by FAO.
” This project changed my life drastically in so many different ways,” said Mehdi ” Because of the irrigation networks I was provided with I save water, fuel, money, and time. Before the networks we would use a car to drive around and pour water indiscriminately, using four times as much water as we do with the new watering system. The irrigation network also doesn’t need fuel, and it takes 2-3 hours to do what would have taken two to three days in our old watering practices.”
Mehdi then went on to say ” We also really benefited from what we were taught regarding using pesticides usage, as before we received the training myself and all the other farmers I knew were using far too many pesticides and fertilizers. Now we know the correct amount to use which helps our crops, and we also learned that using too many pesticides can harm the people who eat them, which is something we did not know before.”
Now Mihdi’s crops are growing at a faster rate than before with almost no harmful weeds on his farm. Once he sells his harvest Mehdi plans to set up the same irrigation system in his other small farm from the profits, which is a great step as it demonstrates empowerment to develop, effective farm management, increased domestic food production increase, and highlights the implementation of environment/ health-conscious farming practices.
In 2021 we will continue to help more farmers to empower them to inspire positive change through partnerships that help rebuild the country.
