Household economy in Yemen, dwindling [Archives:2002/32/Business & Economy]

YEMEN TIMES STAFF
Sources of household economy in Yemen are facing a state of deterioration as people have abandoned breeding animal wealth and around 35 % of the population discarded work in agriculture, added to that the migration of many farmers from the countryside to cities to engage in jobs other than agriculture.
Economic sources estimate that the proportion of those who abandoned animal husbandry in the countryside at about 60%, and 50% of the people relinquished breeding of chicken and sheep. Proportion of those who migrated from rural areas to towns is estimated at 30 to 40 percent of the population, a matter negatively reflected on sources of growth in family income.
Rural population has got influenced by urban life styles. They shifted to purchasing processed dairies instead of fresh. Therefore they have neglected raising cattle. Rural areas inhabitants have also got used to feed on cereals and imported processed goods.
Decline in rainfall and recession in amount of water reserves in the country are factors helped migration of farming labor. Also as a result of drop in family income levels and weakness of the purchasing power in the countryside the people there have used up the greater amount of income-raising sources.
However, rural people try to overcome their living conditions using traditional ways like cutting wood as fuel for cooking instead of gas whose prices soared from YR 50 in 1995 to YR 250, and YR 350 in the countryside.
On the other hand, Environment protection advocates have warned of cutting forest trees in nature reserves including Socotra, and Utma. Nevertheless, inhabitants of such areas think they do not have the purchasing power to afford using liquefied gas in cooking and thus they do not care about rare trees and would not hesitate using their wood in their daily life purposes.
The economic studies say that fifteen years ago 75 percent of inhabitants in Yemen countryside were dependent in their living on raising animal wealth and work in agriculture. People think that government jobs or work in the free market or with private sector have contributed to the drop in proportion of animal and agricultural production and created new problems to those of limited income.
Workers at the free market told Yemen Times that their work around the month does not provide them with an income securing 25 percent of the needs of their families, whereas the families that preserved the folklore professions and continued working in agricultural and animal production, are leading a more secure life. Workers say that with increased costs of living in towns, most of their incomes goes to house renting, and electricity and water supplies bills. As for big families the situation is very hard to cope with.
Economic experts see that solving the problem of dwindling family income beings by the government support for farming activities, and encouraging families on raising animal wealth. Government has embarked on calling for investment in agriculture sector to create job opportunities for the unemployed. Cooperatives for breeding animals have been set up but are still limited and need more support and financing. Economic experts conclude that Yemen countryside needs providing new resources of water such as building dams and water barriers that would help settle of agriculture labor in addition to developing grazing areas for animal breeding. Such steps would surely lead to growth of income sources for household economy and improve the population living conditions.

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