Yemen

As of March 2025, Yemen’s food insecurity crisis and famine had reached 18.2 million people, impacting more than half of its population. The food shortages have been attributed to ongoing conflict, high inflation, extreme drought, and groundwater depletion. This article follows a woman named Bushra through her struggles and leadership as she supports her family through gardening and selling produce. CARE and WFP co-launched a home gardening capacity-building initiative in Bushra’s town, where they gave participants vegetable seeds, irrigation systems, and training related to harvesting and planting. The training was purposefully structured so that the women involved would become the teachers by the end of the program so that they could lead the project at every level as is their right. The intervention was targeted towards confronting both the scarcity of resources and the high cost of food and materials at markets. Now, women in this rural sub-district in the hills of Taiz Governorate are growing, eating, and selling their own vegetables. Bushra reported a noticeable difference in their living conditions and in the sense of community around her. She specified being able to buy her children school supplies, having more involvement in decision-making in her home, and cultivating stronger relationships with neighbors and community members as they tend to their gardens together and share seeds and advice.