The battle between China and Yemen's grapes

STORY: Sharply dressed and trim, Ali Jarallah is making his way through what could be a perfect scene from a pastoral painting: rows upon rows of lush vineyards.

He owns a store that sells grapes and raisins, but there's a problem: this is Yemen, which has been gripped by war for over seven years.

As if that didn't make trade hard enough, he and others in his industry are also facing steep competition from cheap imported grapes and raisins, particularly from China.

Here, he's showing us how it's done locally:

"After the grapes are reaped directly from the farms, we bring them to this place to dry, which is the place where the grapes are transformed into raisins. This place is colloquially called ‘Ousha’. Grapes are laid the way you see here. From the reaping to the drying, the process takes 40 to 50 days."

"In my opinion, one of the ways that will contribute to confronting Chinese raisins is to take care of the packaging of the Yemeni product and the way of presenting the local product. Farmers and raisins sellers must abandon traditional ways of marketing and packaging."

Grapes make up roughly a third of the total area for fruit cultivation here, so foreign competition is noticeable.

Jarallah lives in the city of Sanaa, which is under control of the Houthis, who are aligned with Iran. The Houthi administration recently tried to put restrictions on the imported raisins.

Munir al-Mahbashi is the director of marketing at the ministry of agriculture.

"As for the local production, there are no accurate statistics, but every year it increases. We implement all mechanisms and procedures to market for the local product and try to gradually reduce the imported. Of course, we only allow the import of quantities that cover the demand."

A difficult question of supply and demand, in a war torn land.