Road Map towards solving Water, Qat, and Insecticides problem in Yemen

Water in Yemen is quickly becoming a scarce resource as usage is rising at unstainable rates. These children are hauling water by jugs to use in the home, while much water is wasting in transport and spilled on the streets.

Sana’a natural and environmental resources cannot sustain a population of more than 800,000. The irrigation of Qat trees by groundwater must be stopped. Bottled water must be half a liter only to save much wasted water. The different responsible authorities need to find solutions and treatments instead of holding closed conferences, seminars and workshops. It is quite unreasonable to face water crisis in the Capital and its different water projects supply the whole of the Republic, and even neighboring countries as bottled water. Serious thinking of the possibility of importing Qat from neighboring countries, this will decrease the plantation areas of Qat within the Sana’a basin and save large amounts of water.

The problem is extremely important and dangerous for us and future generation. The different responsible authorities need to find solutions and treatments instead of holding closed conferences, seminars and workshops. These consume aids and gifts rendered by international organizations whose organizers alone are the beneficiaries. They render nothing at the national level. What is done to solve the water problem and delimit any expansion in Qat agriculture does not touch the core of the problem and gives no guarantee for sustainable development required for a bright future.

Yemen has a long history of water resource management and protection. Marib dam, built 3000 years ago, is only a witness, besides Aden historical tanks of man-excavated reservoir. Also, building small dams within mountainous slopes is another witness. Most of these have disappeared and became part of history and what is left does not work. Thus, dams have conserved water for agricultural irrigation, drinking water, and other household uses. They also helped in recharging underground aquifers.

With the end of the 70s of the last century, developmental planning of water resources in Yemen started. It did so through directed studies aimed at development of surface and subsurface water resources, in coastal wadi deltas and in highlands and internal plains around the desert. With the start of the 90s, the depletion of the underground water started coupled with an unprecedented population increase. Then, strategic planning studies for water resources management was put into action. Its development and connection with economic and social development became an objective. This was natural and pressing since water deficiency was critical in certain areas and vital sectors. Disputes among users escalated and some local communities were divided as a result of water rights. Meanwhile, the water supplies to urban areas were subjected to serious constrains. That was due to over-pumping of underground aquifers for the purpose of irrigation, in addition to continuous competition among farmers to pump out the last drop of groundwater in Sana’a, Amran, Sa’adah, and Taiz basins. This has caused continuous increase in water cost and confronts major cities, especially the capital, with a dim future. Unless the government controls water resources through serious, real, and quick steps, the possibility of economic and social development becomes associated with unknown consequences. The expanded gap between water demand and available water constitutes a threat to the socio-economic sustainable development in Yemen, which faces dangerous environmental challenges and water scarcity and pollution have become a dangerous problem. 

Qat, according to official reports, comes second after food in Yemeni household expenditures, taking a range of 26 – 30% of their incomes. The fifth plan of the socio-economic development for 2006 – 2010 estimated cost of Qat consumption around 250 billion Rials yearly. This constitutes quite a cut on the household budget, particularly those of limited incomes. Furthermore, the Qat tree consumes more than 30 – 40 % of the water used for agriculture. The planting of this crop increases 9 – 10% on the account of other crops on a yearly basis. This does not end with time and money waste but also extended to health deterioration. Insecticides and dangerous chemicals used with Qat plantation constitute a primary cause of the spread of cancer.  According to a recent report for the WHO (World Health Organization), the number of people in Yemen affected by cancer reaches to about 20,000 individuals annually. It is known that dangerous diseases like lung, mouth, and colon cancers. Kidney failure and liver cirrhosis started to appear in Yemen during recent years. This is due to the use by Qat farmers of insecticides and poisonous chemicals for crop enhancement and, consequently, income enhancement. These chemicals help the growth of Qat branches to develop in just a few days and these are sold while those poison elements are still active within Qat leaves. Studies indicate that 70% of gross insecticides and chemicals used in agriculture imported by Yemen are used in Qat plantation. And because of its large return its plantation has increased during the last two years to more than 24% of the gross work power in the agricultural sector.

You cannot blame the farmers, as someone says, since Qat plantations deliver financial returns 10 fold higher than potato plantation, for example. You cannot either blame Qat chewers in a country whose two third of its population lives on two dollars a day. They definitely will look for means of self pleasure and attempt to escape their real world. After midday one can see a number of men chewing Qat with lumps the size of a tennis ball, regardless of whether they are sitting, walking, or driving cars, all to a foreigner at first glance, are requiring dental care. 

Sustainable water-use in Yemen, poverty eradication, Qat replacement, and productivity increase could be achieved through the following road map:
1. Preparation of a national plan, supported by a bipartisan unity taskforce, dealing with the dangers of the existing situation and the fierce urgency of its solution.
2. A five-year or a ten-year plan to move the non-sovereign ministries to another city, or other cities, to lessen the stress imposed on the capital Sana’a since its resources, natural and environmental, cannot tolerate a population of more than 800,000.
3. Accelerating de-centralization of industry and immigration by encouraging voluntary migration to other major cities through offering job opportunities and encouraging investment.
4. Establishing projects with high working densities, particularly in coastal regions, and to create sources of income and decent life for residents in their living regions.
5. Creating real market environment that encourages investment and limits capital flight through law implementation and corruption prohibition, in addition to reactivate the level of performance of jurisdiction and the proper selection of cadre in an attempt to create work opportunities for university graduates and to limit unemployment.
6. Upgrading efficiency of treatment plants of waste water in the provinces to acquire effluents suitable for safe irrigation of numerous agricultural crops. This would consequently lower groundwater use.
7. Suspending all water projects within the Sana’a basin and take them outside it, preferably to coastal areas where desalinization techniques are more proper. It is quite unreasonable to face water crisis in the capital and its different water projects supply the whole of the republic, and even neighboring countries as bottled water.
8. The bottled water must be of half a liter only to save on much of wasted water.
9. Establishing desalination technology within coastal areas. It is only a solution to face the increasing need of this resource.
10. Offering alternatives to Qat farmers through planting crops of less water need and useful to national economy not harmful to man and his environment according to studied plans made by the ministry of agriculture to be executed gradually on stages starting with Sana’a basin. In Jordan, the government pays US $120 to farmers for each hectare to stop them from planting vegetables and annual crops during the year 1991. This is a way of importing “virtual water” through buying food where it is more efficient. And, through negotiations with cereal producers, they achieve self food sufficiency versus water safety. If that is what others do with vital food products, is it not reasonable to do similarly with a harmful Qat production.
11. The irrigation of Qat tree by groundwater must be stopped. Its plantation must be restricted to areas fed by rain fall only as was practiced in early days. 12. Ministerial meetings, large meetings in ministries and other working schedules, seminars, and activities in cultural centers must be held in the evenings and without Qat. This will help time saving, serving citizens where those in charge are always in their offices, and lessens the uptake of this miserable plant through occupying people during its chewing time with what is more important.
13. Reactivate the presidential decree prohibiting Qat consumption in military camps and governmental bureaus.
14. Prohibiting the use of insecticides in the plantation of Qat. Insecticides are harms to citizens and the environment in general.
15. Qat markets are to be placed outside cities proper. Qat must not be sold in streets within citizens reach to keep up city cleanness and its beauty, as well as the general look of the Yemeni citizen.
16. Making use of the previous attempt to allow Qat uptake in capital cities during Thursdays, Fridays, and national days only as a mechanism of gradual drop of this habit.
17. Expanding green areas, public gardens, parks, sport clubs, cultural centers, and football stadium to encourage people to spend their free time with fruitful occupations which enhance their skills and scientific and practical capabilities.
18. Serious thinking of the possibility of importing Qat from neighboring countries on stages-one plane daily to Sana’a. This will decrease the plantation areas of Qat within Sana’a basin and save large amounts of water, replacing these areas with other useful crops requiring less water. It also strengthens the budget by taxes more effective in guaranteeing its strict route to the budget. This can be accomplished through a private company in which Qat planters participate to encourage them to give up planting Qat. If this attempt succeeds, then it can be expanded. What is important is to take an initiative to exterminate this tree and take it out of our country within the foreseeable future. Everything in Yemen seems to be imported at the moment. Why not Qat? 
19. Conserving water and its wise use at the field level through acquiring new techniques.
20. Applying water laws on all to limit the random drilling operations of wells, in addition to put forward the structure to monitor water levels in basins and delineate quantities allowable for exploitation.
21. Building establishments to help aquifer recharge systems and enhancing them through dams and barriers.
22. Protecting and channeling wadis and their use for conserving water flows which are lost currently and wasted.
23. Encouraging rain fall agriculture and developing techniques to improve and expand rainfall harvesting because of its importance in water resources and lessens ground and surface water exploitation.
24. Introducing modern irrigation methods and improving traditional irrigation as techniques to enlarge resources and elevate its use efficiency. Experiments carried by the Ministry of Agriculture and Irrigation proved that such introduction accomplishes efficiency of use estimated 30–50%. 

Water usage grew yearly from 2.2 billion m3 in the year 1990 to about 3.4 billion m3 in the year 2000. It is expected to reach to 4.6 billion m3 in the year 2025 which will cause excessive water deficiency.

The challenges of the water sector in Yemen are large. Its handling is not easy. It requires will and a lot of effort and finance. Simultaneous strategies are necessary to deliver a satisfactory result. Perhaps it leads to time and effort wasting. In fact, it is hard to harmonize the acute groundwater exploitation, the increasing demand on Qat, and the random and irresponsible usage of insecticides, on one hand, and the modernization, economic growth and sustainable development on the other hand. The problem acknowledgement and its present and future danger, without given serious handling, is considered a responsibility that is difficult to ignore and does not drop with time. The solution of water crises, the gradual elimination of Qat tree, and limiting the random use of insecticides are the “national security’, and no socio-economic development is possible without giving priority to these basic requirements. Finally, it is my dream to live the day when Yemeni masses go out in the streets, supported by civil and human rights organizations, peacefully asking the government to solve the problem of water, Qat, insecticides, and pollution in Yemen, as other peoples do. Those who do not give up asking their systems and governments to put a limit to environmental pollution, then I will feel that the individual in my country started to care about himself and about generations to come and that he can do something in this direction.

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