Al Ofairi Women Farmers

Al Ofairi Women Farmers · Women Community Lot · Natural · Kent · Bani Ofair, Maghrib Ans, Dhamar

The knowledge these women carry is older than the nurseries. Before seedlings could be bought, a tree began with a seed soaked in ash and straw, and the women who have farmed here longest can still describe the method exactly, because it is how the trees now standing on their terraces were started.

They grow Kent at around 1,800 metres, on trees mostly past thirty years old, with bananas, peaches and grapes sharing the same ground. Harvest is the point in the year when the valley moves as one: families and neighbours climbing up together and carrying the cherries back down the mountain.

Ghusun Ghaleb Al-Ofairi is one of the farmers in this lot, and one of the most experienced in Bani Ofair. She learned coffee first from her father and then from her husband, and she farms the terraced slopes of Al Manshiya, where she now looks after more than two thousand trees older than thirty years, watered by rain and spring water and fed with natural manure. Her harvests have grown large enough that she takes on extra hands at the peak of the season. What she wants from the years ahead is to stay well enough to keep working and keep growing coffee.

The hazard they all watch for is hail. It arrives in spring, strips the flowers from the branches before a single cherry has formed, and settles the size of the harvest months in advance.

The record here is strong. The Al Ofairi women placed seventh in the 2024 auction, and Ghusun took ninth in 2025 under her own name. Asked what she likes best about the year, she talks about the moment the branches turn heavy and red, like jewels waiting to be picked.