When alfalfa farms were established in the Emirates, Arizona wells dried up. Because?

A blanket of bright green alfalfa stretches across western Arizona’s McMullen Valley, surrounded by rolling mountains and warmed by the hot desert sun.

Matthew Hancock’s family has used groundwater to grow fodder here for more than six decades. They have long been accustomed to the whims of Mother Nature, which can ruin an entire cut of alfalfa with a downpour or produce an especially large crop with a series of hot days.

But concerns about the future water supply from the valley’s ancient aquifers, which hold groundwater reserves, are growing in Wenden, a town of about 700 people where the Hancock family farms.

Some neighbors complain that their backyard wells have dried up since Emirati agribusiness Al Dahra began growing alfalfa here on about 3,000 acres several years ago.

It is unknown how much water the Al Dahra operation uses, but Hancock estimates it needs between 15,000 and 16,000 acre-feet a year, based on what his own alfalfa farm needs. He says he gets all the water he needs by drilling hundreds of feet. One acre-foot of water is approximately enough to supply two or three American homes per year.

Hancock said he and his neighbors with larger farms are more concerned that in the future state officials could take control of the groundwater they now use for agriculture and transfer it to Phoenix and other urban areas amid the worst Western drought. in centuries.

“I care about local community agriculture in Arizona,” Hancock said, standing outside an open barn filled with bales of hay.

Concerns about the Earth’s groundwater supplies are a priority in the run-up to COP28, the annual United Nations climate summit that opens this week in the Emirati city of Dubai. Gulf countries like the United Arab Emirates are especially vulnerable to global warming, with high temperatures, arid climates, water shortages and rising sea levels.

“Water scarcity has led companies to go where the water is,” said Robert Glennon, a water law and policy expert and professor emeritus at the University of Arizona.

Experts say tensions are inevitable as companies in climate-affected countries like the United Arab Emirates increasingly look to faraway places like Arizona for water and land to grow livestock fodder and staples like wheat for domestic use and export.

“As the impacts of climate change increase, we expect to see more droughts,” said Karim Elgendy, a climate change and sustainability specialist at the Chatham House think tank in London. “This means that more countries would look for alternative places for food production.”

Without regulations for groundwater pumping, rural Arizona is especially attractive, said Elgendy, who focuses on the Middle East and North Africa. International corporations have also turned to Ethiopia and other parts of Africa to develop huge agricultural operations criticized as “land grabs.”

La Paz County Supervisor Holly Irwin welcomes a recent crackdown by Arizona officials against unrestricted groundwater pumping long allowed in rural areas, noting local concerns about wells dry lands and subsidence that have created fissures in the ground and flooding during heavy rains.

“The effects of the lack of regulation are beginning to be seen,” he said. “First of all, we don’t know how much water we have in these aquifers and we don’t know how much is being pumped.”

Irwin laments that foreign companies are “extracting our natural resources to grow crops like alfalfa…and sending them overseas back to their country where they have depleted their water source.”

Gary Saiter, board president and general manager of the Wenden Domestic Water Improvement District, said utility records showed the surface-to-water depth at its headquarters was just over 100 feet in the 1970s. 1950, but now it is about 540 feet.

Saiter said that during those years, food crops like melon have been replaced by forage crops like alfalfa, which require a lot of water.

“I think the state legislature needs to step up and really put some control in place, start measuring the water that farms use,” Saiter said.

In October, Gov. Katie Hobbs canceled the state’s land lease on another La Paz County alfalfa farm, one operated by Fondomonte Arizona, a subsidiary of Saudi dairy giant Almarai Co. The Democrat said the state would not renew three more Fondomonte leases next year, saying the company violated some lease terms.

Fondomonte denied this and said it will appeal the decision to terminate its lease on 640 acres in Butler Valley. Arizona has less control over Al Dahra, which farms on land leased from a private corporation based in North Carolina.

Glennon, the Arizona water policy expert, said he worked with a consulting group that advised Saudi Arabia more than a decade ago to import hay and other crops rather than drain its aquifers. He said Arizona must also protect its groundwater.

“I think we need sensible regulation,” Glennon said. “I don’t want the farms to go out of business, but I don’t want it to drain the aquifers either.”

Seeking crops for domestic use and export, Al Dahra grows wheat and barley in Romania, operates a flour mill in Bulgaria and owns dairy cows in Serbia. He runs a rice mill in Pakistan and grows grapes in Namibia and citrus in Egypt. Serves markets around the world.

The company is controlled by the state-owned company ADQ, an Abu Dhabi-based holding and investment company. Its chairman is the country’s powerful national security adviser, Sheikh Tahnoon bin Zayed Al Nahyan, brother of ruler Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed Al Nahyan.

The company did not respond to numerous emails and voicemails sent to its offices in the United Arab Emirates and its subsidiary Al Dahra ACX in the US seeking comment on its Arizona operation.

But on its website, Al Dahra acknowledges the challenges of climate change, noting “the continued decline in arable land and the decline in water resources available for agriculture.” The company says it views water and food safety as “at the core of its strategy” and uses drip irrigation to optimize water use.

Foreign and out-of-state U.S. farms are not prohibited from growing crops in Arizona or selling their products around the world. American farmers often export hay and other feed crops to countries such as Saudi Arabia and China.

In groundwater-dependent Cochise County in Arizona, residents worry that the mega-dairy operated there by Riverview LLP of Minnesota could deplete their water supplies. The company did not respond to a request for comment on its water use.

“The problem is not who’s doing it, it’s that we’re allowing it to be done,” said Kathleen Ferris, a senior researcher at Arizona State University’s Kyl Center for Water Policy. “We need to pass laws that give more control over groundwater uses in these unregulated areas.”

Ferris, former director of the Arizona Department of Water Resources, helped draft the state’s 1980 Groundwater Management Act that protects aquifers in urban areas like Phoenix, but not in rural agricultural areas.

Many people mistakenly believe that groundwater is a personal property right, Ferris said, noting that the Arizona Supreme Court has ruled that there is only a property right in water once it has been pumped.

In Arizona, rural resistance to pumping limits remains strong and efforts to create rules have gone nowhere in the Legislature. The Arizona Farm Bureau has rejected narratives that portray foreign agricultural companies like Al Dahra as groundwater pirates.

Rural Arizona is “the Wild West” when it comes to groundwater, said Kathryn Sorensen, research director at the Kyl Center. “Whoever has the biggest well and extracts the most groundwater wins.”

“Arizona is fortunate to have very large and productive groundwater aquifers,” he added. “But just like an oil field, if you pump it at a significant rate, you run out of water and it’s gone.”

This story was reported by The Associated Press. Jon Gambrell in Dubai contributed to this report.