Saudis Buy Huge Arizona Farmland After Sucking their own Aquifers Dry
Fifteen years ago, the Saudi government told its farmers to grow wheat and paid them 5 times the market price to do so. In a country without a single lake or river, they told farmers to drill as deep as they wanted for water.
Flash forward to 2011: the aquifers were sucked dry. Totally depleted. Bone dry in a country with scant rainfall. What did they do next? The Saudi dairy Almarai came to western Arizona and bought 15 square miles of farmland. They are sucking our aquifers dry by planting alfalfa for export, which requires 4 times more irrigation than wheat.
This is how climate change is bringing competition for water to Arizona, according to a new book, This Is the Way the World Ends: How Droughts and Die-offs, Heat Waves and Hurricanes Are Converging on America. Author Jeff Nesbit says, “This $47.5 million transaction is an example of the Saudi’s efforts to ensure the country’s dairy business as well as conserving the nation’s resources.”
Secret plan to buy farmland
Almarai bought 9,834 acres of farmland in Vicksburg, Arizona, in La Paz County through its subsidiary Fondomonte, Arizona LLC. “Water for Almarai’s irrigation efforts come from the same source of fresh water — the Colorado River –that provides drinking water for cities like Los Angeles and Las Vegas,” Nesbit writes. “The Colorado River reservoirs have been experiencing all-time lows, creating a volatile local political situation.”
Read more: https://blogforarizona.net/saudis-buy-huge-arizona-farmland-after-sucking-their-own-aquifers-dry/
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