Agricultural mechanization development in Yemen (1970-2003)

Abstract

The Yemeni farmer has been practicing manual cultivation since long periods, in a small area that meets his family's food requirements by conducting various agricultural operations using his animals for the traction. The objective of this research was to determine the present status of the adopted agricultural machinery and make a comparison of the machinery in different of Yemeni governorates. The results of the 2002 agricultural census were used for this research, as this census covered all governorates. The results showed that the distribution of cultivated area were 7.63%, 7.92%, 28.34% and 56.11% of the total area less than 0.5 ha, from 0.5 to less than 1 ha, from 1ha to less than 5 ha and 5 ha and more respectively. While the distribution of land owners were 58.42%, 14.94%, 19.59% and 7.05% of total land owners owned less than 0.5 ha, from 0.5 to less than 1 ha, from 1ha to less than 5 ha and 5 ha and more respectively. Sa’adah governorate has the most number of machinery as well as 42640 in number and the lowest number was 86 of machineries owned by Raymah. Irrigation pumps are used in the highest number, which is 211620, the threshers was the lowest number, which is 1058. Al Hudaydah was used the highest number of tractors that is 3542 and Raymah the lowest number, 30. Al Jawf was used the highest number of harvesters, which is 239 and Dhale the lowest number 18. The highest number of threshers was used in Sana’a and the lowest number was used in Taiz, which are 193 and 15 respectively. The significant number of irrigation pumps was used in Sa’dah which is 34334 and the lowest number was used in Raymah, which is 56. San’a, Sa’dah was used the highest number of sprayers that is 2181 and Al Maharah was used the lowest numbers, which is 11. Dhamar was used the highest number and Al Mahwit was used the lowest number of the other machinery which are 8470 and 5 respectively. Regarding the machineries per hectare, the results showed that Sa'adah was in the first position of all the 21 governorates with is 1.41 machineries per hectare. Dahle and Shabwah are in the second and third positions with 1.26 and 0.92 machineries respectively. Raymah was ranked at last position with 0.006686 machineries. The results analyzed from this research show that many of agricultural operations at the present time are still carried out manually or by animals. In addition agricultural machinery per hectare area still very low and was not adequate to fulfill the meaningful mechanization.