Yemeni Agriculture is classified as being subsistence agriculture– though the agriculture contributes 17% of the Gross Domestic Product, and employs more than half of the available manpower – that relies upon the use of the limited natural resources of water and land as a base for its continuity, which is rapidly depleting.
This is due to the bias towards groundwater irrigated agriculture, and a distorted price structure for agricultursl inputs and outputs and in view of the existence of small and
widely dispersed farm holdings, not to mention the neglect of the traditional farming methods by Research and Extension and the lack of compatibility of the advanced inputted technologies because they do not meet the needs of the farmers and do not correspond to the available resources.
Towards the forulation of a comprehensive Qat policy
2006-02-02
While qat has been produced and consumed in Yemen since time immemorial, causing no special concern, it has developed during the last three decades of the 20th Century to become a controversial issue. It is believed that this unprecedented huge increase in qat production and consumption is related to the massive immigration of Yemenis to Saudi Arabia and other Gulf countries. The immigration of farmers and farm labor resulted in neglecting large numbers of farms, with many of them left unattended, which led to soil erosion caused by the failure to conserve the wonderful traditional terrace system that characterize Yemen agriculture.
Agriculture and Land and Water Use Commission for the Near East (ALAWUC) - Fourth Session 
