On the Brink of Famine
The crucial facts he speaks of could not be more dire. An appalling 63 percent of Yemen’s 27.4 million people are food-insecure, according to the USAID-funded Famine Early Warning Systems Network (FEWS NET). That means 17.1 million Yemenis currently skip at least one meal a day and don’t know if they’ll find any nutritional, wholesome food to eat tomorrow.
In fact, according to the famine network’s technical rating, Yemeni’s have reached phase 4 (out of 5) in the food security paradigm, just one step from “catastrophe,” or mass death by starvation. So healthful local food production, especially in the face of closed-off ports and few avenues to refuge, is an absolute necessity because of its reliability and sustained value.
Joining Hands with Mercy Corps
Mercy Corps workers on the ground in East Africa have implemented successful food resilience programs for several years and, along with Zakat Foundation field hands’ know-how and connections, are now bringing that expertise to Yemen’s sesame farmers—to 1,305 of them to be exact.
So far, sesame production (the yield per hectare) has increased by more than 25 percent as a result of the use of high-quality seeds and better agriculture practices. Zakat Foundation and Mercy Corps field workers expect that yield to rise by another 30 percent at the project’s midpoint and stay at that level thereafter.