Academics have been amassing data from Yemen which strongly suggests that the Saudi governments' Yemen campaign contains a programme for the destruction of rural livelihood [7].

Rural Yemen represents the bulk of the country: 65% of Yemen’s population still lives in dispersed villages, and over half of the population relies in part or whole on agriculture and animal husbandry. Villages, sites of food production, are inevitably less ‘visible’ in media.

Martha Mundy, emeritus professor at the London School of Economics, who works in Lebanon with her colleague Cynthia Gharios, has been researching through Yemeni agriculture ministry statistics and says that the data “is beginning to show that in some regions, the Saudi government are deliberately striking at agricultural infrastructure in order to destroy the civil society” [7].

Mundy points out that a conservative report from the ministry of agriculture and irrigation in the Yemeni capital Sana’a gathered from its users across the country, details 357 bombing targets in the country’s 20 provinces, including farms, animals, water infrastructure, food stores, agricultural banks, markets, and food trucks.

These include the destruction of farms in Yasnim, the Baqim district of Saadah province and in Marran.

The data reveal that agricultural land was the target most frequently hit in every governorate except for Shabwa and al Mahwait (where the road to Sana’a was the primary target). According to FAOSTAT in Yemen agriculture covers just under 3% of the land, forests 1%, and pastures roughly 42%. In short, to target agriculture requires a precise aim.

“According to the Food and Agriculture Organisation, 2.8 percent of Yemen’s land is cultivated,” Mundy says. “To hit that small amount of agricultural land, you have to target it.” Saudi Arabia has already been accused of war crimes.

Mundy’s research suggests that industrial support administration buildings for agriculture were also attacked. The major Tihama Development Authority on the Red Sea coastal plain, which was established in the 1970s, is responsible for a series of irrigation structures. It has been heavily bombed twice.

On Aug. 12, 2018, the coalition bombed and destroyed the main bridge to Sanaa, the Yemeni capital, on a road where roughly 90 percent of U.N. food and other aid is transported from the port city Hodeidah. After the attack, Oxfam issued a statement warning that the bridge's destruction "threatens to leave many more people unable to feed themselves, worsening an already catastrophic situation in the country." [3]

Prior to 1970, Yemen was close to self-sufficiency in basic grains, which is a key component of the Yemeni diet. Starting in 1970, though, there was an influx of both public and private investment that served to irrigate coastal lands. This new irrigated land was conducive for producing crops such as fruits and vegetables, which were later sold in large cities and exported. As a consequence of this increased emphasis on irrigated cash crops, grain production decreased by nearly 27 percent between 1970 and 1980 and has continued to decrease; Yemen now needs to import over 75 percent of grain products. In addition, farmers abandoned traditional farming techniques that were previously used to produce grain as well-drilling and diesel-powered well pumps became more widely available.

After the unification of Yemen in 1990. Ali Abdullah Saleh, then President of Yemen, aligned his policies toward the expansion of Yemen’s military capabilities and left the development of the agricultural sector to be taken care of by international agencies. This created a lack of ownership by the Yemeni government over the agricultural sector in Yemen. Additionally, structural adjustment policies aimed at eliminating impoverishment contributed to increased prices for basic goods. These policies, aimed at alleviating poverty and the lack of government investment in agriculture, remained constant until the start of the war in 2015.

Two changes have occurred since the start of the war that have further impacted the agricultural sector. The first is the mass departure of foreign organizations from Yemen in 2015. Their sudden departure was devastating as the government still largely relied on them to bolster the agricultural sector. The second is the actions of the Saudi-led coalition, mainly their airstrikes targeting agricultural land. By damaging farmlands, the coalition is attempting to cripple the Houthi economy by limiting their opportunities to produce and export goods. Furthermore, Saudi Arabia has also blockaded ports and prevented imports from getting in, further crippling the economy.