In Arizona, worsening drought has brought renewed attention to a farm owned by a Saudi Arabian company and whether the state should be doing more to protect its groundwater resources.
This image shows an Almarai logo in Cairo, Egypt, on Wednesday, April 26, 2023. Fondomonte Arizona, a subsidiary of Almarai Co., has for nearly a decade grown alfalfa in the American Southwest that is sent to the Gulf kingdom to feed cows there. Arizona rescinded a pair of drilling permits that would have allowed Fondomonte to pump up to 3,000 gallons of water per minute to irrigate its forage crops.
In an interview with The Associated Press, Attorney General Kris Mayes said she thought most Arizonans see it as “outrageous” that the state is allowing foreign-owned companies “to stick a straw in our ground and use our water for free to grow alfalfa and send it home to Saudi Arabia. We just can’t — in the midst of an epic drought — afford to do dumb things with water in the state of Arizona anymore.
Saudi Arabia, struggling with its own water shortages in the past decade, restricted the growth of some forage crops in the country. That Fondomonte chose Arizona as a place to grow such crops has angered some in the state, which has faced two consecutive years of federal water cuts from the Colorado River, a primary water source for the state.Gov. Katie Hobbs
“There’s a perception that water goes to local uses,” said Andrew Curley, a professor of geography and the environment at the University of Arizona. “When you recognize it’s going far away, that the products and benefits of this water are exported overseas, that really provokes people’s attention.” U.S. farmers themselves export hay and other forage crops to the Middle East — mainly to Saudi Arabia. China is the primary export market for U.S. hay.
“Frankly, I believe they are not doing their jobs,” Mayes said about Arizona’s Department of Water Resources' oversight of rural areas. The department declined to comment on the revoked drilling permits or the need for more groundwater regulation.
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