In a field visit to the sub-project #5 Al Muares - Al Bajeelah, Al-Zahra District, Hodeidah within the emergency lifeline connectivity project in Yemen, we met with the farmer Muhammad Kumait, a resident of the village of Kit Harba, who is one of Kit Harba’s beneficiaries of the project. He told us about the suffering of farmers in the area before the implementation of the road, and he explained to us the difficulties that farmers were facing in so many aspects such as selling, transporting and marketing crops and agricultural products, and he mentioned how traders used this problem for their sake to control the prices of their crops, as well as, he mentioned that traders and buyers of crops and agricultural products determined the price of Agricultural crops in a way that suited them and not under the market price criteria because they know that farmers cannot transport products to markets and sell them.
He further explained that they were facing two options, they had to choose between selling at the price set by the buyer or letting the crops go to waste due to the absence of proper roads, also he mentioned how the transporting process costed them which reached up to 150,000 Yemeni rails and more, due to the difficult road conditions, and truck drivers refusing to enter the area during rainy seasons because of mud, leading to the corruption and spoilage of significant amounts of crops.
Additionally, he discussed the difficulty in attracting labor to work in the farms due to the absence of transportation for workers. As a result, this obstacle forced workers to travel long distances on foot, and this led workers to stop traveling, which caused the crop corruption and poor production.
However, after the road was implemented, a significant improvement have occurred in the agricultural sector in the region. It directly have assisted farmers in selling and marketing their crops, enabling them to compete by transporting their crops to places where traders and buyers operate.
I can now market even one mango to a place marketed by the trader and the buyer at a price that suits me.
Muhammad Kumait
Farmer
He concluded by stating that this implemented road has solved the major problems that farmers faced, eliminating the fear of crop spoilage, transportation challenges, and difficulties in marketing and selling in the markets.