Why is Saudi Arabia buying so much U.S. farmland?

[castanea]

I'm not necessarily against this, or even concerned about it, but I think it raises some interesting questions. China is doing the same thing.

www.newstarget.com/2016-04-15-why-is-saudi-arabia-buying-so-much-u-s-farmland.html

[reed]

The Saudi royals set a goal of food self sufficiency back around the 1980s and subsidized large irrigation projects to raise alfalfa which takes quite a bit of water. They use it to feed their cows who live in big air conditioned barns, sounds nuts I know but they are rich. They went out in the desert and punched wholes into the ancient aquifer that fed the oasis of bible times. Long story short it went dry, an approximate volume equal to Lake Erie. Production of alfalfa fell to below export levels a few years ago and by royal decree 2016 is the last year any alfalfa will be raised in Saudi Arabia.

So they went out into the proverbial back forty of Arizona , where no one would notice and started buying up desert with existing wells into the Ogallala Aquifer and are drilling more all the time. They will just raise their alfalfa here. Same with the Chinese, also why the Chinese bought Smithfield Farms, the US biggest pork producer. Takes a lot of water to raise and feed pigs.

Water is already the new oil, gold and holy grail all rolled into one, we are just too stupid to care. In another twenty years or so the Ogallala will be dry too. Then there is the nice out of sight out of mind, tar sand mining in the central Canadian arboreal forest, the head water source for half of North America. A chunk half the size of Florida already shows up on satellite images looking a lot like Mordor. [add] and not the movie Mordor, the Mordor a 9 year old imagines when he read that story long long before the movies ruined it for any other kid, not that kids read anymore anyway. [add again] everything will look like Mordor before long, nobody's gonna save the Shire now, I'm afraid.  

Sorry, don't usually comment in the soapbox. Stepping down  now, while my blood pressure is still manageable. 

[raymondo]

I think the Saudis are buying here in Australia too. I know the Chinese are, both agricultural land and mining leases. And the Japanese bought golf resorts - fly in, a few day's golfing, then fly home again, don't even have to change currency as the resorts accept yen.

[templeton]

Further to Raymondo's comments, a few years ago the chinese bought Cuddy Station, one of the greatest water extractors in Australia. Relatively unregulated, since many Aust rivers carry most of their water outside the banks - floodplain flow that only occurs in big wets, so isn't regulated.
In addition, they bid for, and won, exclusive access to Ord River stage 2 - promised a huge cane industry, changed their minds, and now export all the produce home. Peppercorn rent.

Note: this is what the US and British corporations did here 50 years ago, so it's a well established model, not determined by skin colour, language or faith...with similar outcomes for local communities.
T

[MikeH]

Better to own real assets rather than financial assets, especially when the money printing presses are running in high gear.

[raymondo]

Apr 16, 2016 4:58:25 GMT -5 templeton said:

Further to Raymondo's comments, a few years ago the chinese bought Cuddy Station, one of the greatest water extractors in Australia. Relatively unregulated, since many Aust rivers carry most of their water outside the banks - floodplain flow that only occurs in big wets, so isn't regulated.
In addition, they bid for, and won, exclusive access to Ord River stage 2 - promised a huge cane industry, changed their minds, and now export all the produce home. Peppercorn rent.

Note: this is what the US and British corporations did here 50 years ago, so it's a well established model, not determined by skin colour, language or faith...with similar outcomes for local communities.
T

A little shy of 38,000 acres which cost the Australian taxpayer $510 million to develop. Money for jam, from the Chinese point of view. Why do we bother paying tax locally? We might as well pay China direct and cut out the middle man.

[steev]

Guys!, guys!, guys!; if you're gonna sing my tunes, ya gotta pay me royalties!

As T pointed out, this isn't race, language, or religion; it's BUSINESS! Big Business doesn't give a husky fuck about the people impacted by its dealings! Any of you Strines heard about the "Clearances", or the common choice offered "criminals" (largely the impoverished, driven off the land): hanging or transport? How about the Scots and Scotch-Irish of North America; any of those heard of it? This bottom-line-obsessed bullshit has gone on for centuries; the only new wrinkles are that it's not so much white Europeans doing it these days, and that what is being commodified is water, without which there is no life.

So you grow your alfalfa in Arizona, or your wine or nuts in California, and you ship it back "home", thereby carrying off the water. Does it deplete/degrade the aquifer where these exportable crops are grown? Damn straight it does!

So what? Those aren't "your" people being fucked out of their ecosystem; you aren't responsible to them; "your" people are the ones benefiting from the depletion of the ecosystem of "those" people; "your" people are the ones who would perhaps overthrow you if you failed to benefit them; so to cover your ass, it makes sense to rip off people who can't kick you out. If it can be done on the QT, without the people being ripped off knowing exactly what's happening, it's all so much more efficient, profitable, and less disruptive; isn't that what we all really want: to be legally, peacefully, quietly, gently screwed by somebody who doesn't give a husky fuck whether we live or die?

Aside from my own personal disgust at the upsurge of this sort of bullshit, thanks to globalization (it's not just happening in European-derived cultural areas; check out Africa and Latin America), I seriously think this bullshit is laying the foundation for WWIII, which I think will really be a bitch, the likes of which the two prequels will pale beside. If it comes to that, I'm not confident the two prequels will even be reliably remembered.

Oh, well, some people are looking forward to Armageddon; I think they'll be disappointed at how it really turns out; such an unspiritual paroxysm of destruction, lacking heavenly trumpets and angelic choruses.

[steev]

Returning to this irritating thread: the "reservoir" in the valley I pass through going to my farm appears to have passed (its sixth try; that's what a stupid idea it is, but this time people are all "it's a drought; we must save water"; like the water from this bogus reservoir will go to anything but Big Ag, or that, in this drought, there is water in the Sacramento River to pump uphill to fill this reservoir.

My neighbor, a county supervisor, says there will be a causeway across the reservoir and our valley will get 1000 acre-feet of water from the reservoir; I have no reason to suppose any of that water will come to me, being unconnected to any municipality. I doubt he'll get any of it either. The only real "benefit" I see coming from that additional 1000 acre-feet of water is that it will enable the building of more homes, increasing population in a very job-deficient valley; really, the primary "industries" in that valley are ranching (for those there for generations, having land, who all need other jobs to get by), retirement (for those with monthly checks coming in), and fostering the children of those who can't get their shit together. This is not to say that I disparage ranchers who work as plumbers or truckers, retirees trying to get by on fixed incomes, or those who will host unfortunate minors for little money; hard-working, decent people all. I just think this reservoir project has nothing to do with these people; I think it's about Big Construction and Big Ag; I think that's bullshit.

I think my part will be to pay taxes to fund the construction of infrastructure for the benefit of Big Ag in another county. Oh, well, never mind.