Ahlam al-Alaja

Ahlam al-Alaja is a Yemeni farmer who was the first to take part in an FAO program to switch from drug cultivation to vegetable farming. She works in a village in the mountainous north of Yemen and is considered a pioneer of healthier, environmentally friendly agriculture .

After years of resistance from the local, male-dominated society, she was able to prove that the savings in expensive groundwater pumped up - the Kath shrub requires several hours of artificial irrigation every day - makes up for the lower price for the vegetables sold in the markets.

However, as Alaja reported to the project managers, the effort involved in the field work is somewhat higher. In Yemen, the groundwater level has been falling for decades, so that the substitution of Kath by vegetable cultivation should prevent future environmental problems in one of the driest countries in the world.

See also

• Women's rights
• Drug substitution

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Ahlam's dream - Paradeiser instead of Kath . In: Wiener Zeitung. July 21, 2018, p. 8.