Al-Khadher Salman Masoud, 50, and a farmer from the village of Asilah (Halhel) in the Governorate of al-Baydha, reminisces about the times the farm retainer walls were swept away by torrent floods few years back - when crops were plentiful, and where part was sold and the rest stored. Today, the situation has changed: Al-Khadher Salman can no longer provide food to sustain his family for a full year.

Useless Torrent Water

Torrent water passes through farms in huge volumes as farmers watch and bite their nails in regret. The flowing torrents erode farms and crops, and destroys water channels depriving more than 500 acres of farmland of irrigation water.

The water flows in the valley in huge volumes, but it flows down the valley in utter defiance challenging the residents of Halhel and dares them to do something about it.
Salmain Awadh, one of the farmers in the area, describes the situation of farmers in his village after the torrent floods swept away their farms by saying: "Farmers have become poor and are in dire needs. Their livelihoods and their only source of income is agriculture and what the land gives them. This source has been adversely affected after the torrent floods swept away most of the small farms in both banks of the valley. We are now watching the water flows down the valley and are unable to make use of it feeling so powerless; thus, our production has been reduced to next to nothing."

Life Restored

Al-Haithmi Ahmed Naser thinks that the intervention by the PWP to implement a subproject to protect agricultural land in the area is similar to restoring life for tens of farmers who have been forced to abandon the land and leave it vulnerable to desertification. The production of the land deteriorated and never the same as before.

Al-Haithmi asserts that the situation has now changed. The implementation of the agricultural land protection subprojects will restore vitality and energy to the farmers to work in their land. The water problem has now been solved and years of production and goodness lie ahead; farmers lives will improve; incomes will thrive; food security will be better, and days of misery and deprivation will be part of the past.