{"id":44777,"date":"2019-03-25T19:30:55","date_gmt":"2019-03-26T00:30:55","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/?p=44777"},"modified":"2019-03-25T19:30:58","modified_gmt":"2019-03-26T00:30:58","slug":"saudi-arabia-using-140-year-old-loophole-to-soak-up-californias-scarce-water-supply","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/?p=44777","title":{"rendered":"Saudi Arabia Using 140-Year-Old Loophole To Soak Up California’s Scarce Water Supply"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Saudi Arabia Using 140-Year-Old Loophole To Soak Up California’s Scarce Water Supply<\/a><\/h3>\n\n\n\n

Saudi Arabia is exploiting a farming loophole in California which allows a tiny, poverty-stricken desert town to use as much water as it needs for agriculture, for free<\/strong> – circumventing harsh water restrictions imposed in the Saudi Kingdom, reports The Guardian<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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In particular, the Saudis are after alfalfa to feed their cows – setting up shop in Blythe, California – home to roughly 21,000 people (6,000 of whom live in prison) about four hours east of Los Angeles. Fondomonte Farms is a subsidiary of Saudi-based Almarai, one of the largest food production companies in the world. Every month, Fondomonte ships boat-loads of alfalfa to a massive port stationed on the Red Sea, just outside Saudi Arabia’s King Abdullah City. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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The state of the Colorado river can be traced, in part, to a water claim approved by the federal government all the way back in the 1800s<\/strong> when a British gold rush-era prospector named Thomas Blythe first laid eyes on the desert expanse adjacent to the rushing Colorado river and submitted a water claim application to the federal government.<\/p>

That 1877 water claim, now owned by the Palo Verde Irrigation District, ensures that Blythe has \u201cunquantified water rights for beneficial use\u201d; in other words, as much water as those living and farming within the district could possibly need in this water-scarce region, and for free.<\/strong><\/p>

…<\/p>

With the Saudi Arabian landscape there being mostly desert and alfalfa being a water-intensive crop, growing it there has always been expensive and draining on scarce water resources, to the point that the Saudi government finally outlawed the practice in 2016<\/strong>. In the wake of the ban, Almarai decided to purchase land wherever it is cheap and has favorable water conditions to produce enough feed for its 93,000 cows<\/strong>. –The Guardian<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

\u00a0\u2026click on the above link to read the rest of the article\u2026
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Saudi Arabia Using 140-Year-Old Loophole To Soak Up California’s Scarce Water Supply Saudi Arabia is exploiting a farming loophole in California which allows a tiny, poverty-stricken desert town to use as much water as it needs for agriculture, for free – circumventing harsh water restrictions imposed in the Saudi Kingdom, reports The Guardian. In particular, the Saudis are […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[24811,6917,866,4628,4318],"class_list":["post-44777","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-environment","tag-alfalfa","tag-the-guardian","tag-water","tag-water-restrictions","tag-zerohedge"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44777","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=44777"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44777\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":44778,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44777\/revisions\/44778"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=44777"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=44777"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=44777"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}