In La Paz County, Arizona, on the rugged border with California, a Saudi-owned dairy company’s decision to grow alfalfa in the American Southwest for livestock in the Gulf Kingdom first raised eyebrows almost a decade ago. . Now, with the drought worsening, renewed attention is being paid to whether Arizona should do more to protect its groundwater resources, and to the company.

In an extensive investigation by the state attorney general, Arizona last week allowed Almarai Co. subsidiary Fondomonte Arizona to drill more than 1,000 feet into the water table and pump up to 3,000 gallons of water. Permission revoked. Every minute to irrigate its fodder crops.

In an interview with The Associated Press, Attorney General Chris Mays said most Arizonans believe that the state should allow foreign companies to “stick a straw into our land, grow alfalfa with our water for free, and send it to Saudi Arabia.” Send me in. I can no longer afford to do stupid things with water in Arizona during an epic drought.”

Mays, a Democrat, asked for a revocation after her office said it found inconsistencies in the permit application. After reporting that he had leased it to the company at a lower price, he vowed to investigate Fondmonte’s business and water use.

Fondomonte did not respond to multiple requests for comment from AP. Lawyers for the company have previously said the company legally leased and purchased land in the United States and spent millions on infrastructure improvements.

Years of drought have increased pressure on western water users, especially in states such as Arizona that rely heavily on the declining Colorado River. The drought has made groundwater, which has long been almost unrestricted to farmers and rural residents, even more important to users across the state.

Saudi Arabia has struggled with its own water shortages over the past decade, limiting the growth of some of the country’s forage crops. Fondomonte’s choice of Arizona as the location to grow such a crop has angered parts of the state, which has faced federal water cuts for the second year in a row from the state’s primary water source, the Colorado River. .

Officials from both parties have criticized foreign companies’ use of the state’s water, and Gov. Katie Hobbs, also a Democrat, said in a state address in January that she, too, would investigate the practice. increase. Hobbes said the state’s groundwater “should be used to support the people of Arizona, not for foreign business interests.”

In the same month, Republican state legislators introduced a bill banning the sale of state land to foreign governments, state-owned companies, and companies based in China, Russia, or Saudi Arabia.

“There is a perception that water is used locally,” said Andrew Curley, professor of geography and environmental studies at the University of Arizona. It really gets people’s attention.”

According to the U.S. Department of Agriculture, foreign entities and individuals control approximately 3% of U.S. farmland. Canada has the largest reserves and is primarily forest land. Fourteen U.S. states restrict foreign individuals or entities from owning agricultural land, but the restrictions vary and no state outright prohibits it.

Fondomonte also farms in California’s Palo Verde Valley, which draws water from the Colorado River. These operations have received less scrutiny. And it’s not the only foreign company operating farms in the Southwest. Al Dahra ACX Global Inc., owned by the United Arab Emirates, grows forage crops in Arizona and California and is a major North American exporter of hay.

US farmers themselves export hay and other forage crops to the Middle East, primarily Saudi Arabia. China is a major export market for US hay.

In Arizona, renewed attention to Fondomote water use calls into question the state’s lack of regulation of groundwater abstraction in the state’s rural areas.

Phoenix, Tucson, and other Arizona cities have limits on how much groundwater can be pumped under a 1980 state law intended to protect the state’s aquifers. However, in rural areas, little is required of water users beyond registering wells with the state and using the water for activities such as agriculture that are considered “beneficial uses.”

“Frankly, I don’t think they’re doing their job,” Mays said of the Arizona Department of Water Resources’ oversight of rural areas. declined to comment on the need for

Mays says more research is needed, along with hydrologists and environmental advocates, on groundwater bodies in rural areas such as La Paz County, a rural area of ​​about 16,000 people. Currently, Arizona does not measure the amount of water pumped by groundwater users in such areas. That means we know very little about how much water businesses like Fondmonte and other farms use.

Almarai’s property in the southwest is just one example of the farmland the company and its subsidiaries operate outside of Saudi Arabia. The company farms tens of thousands of acres in Argentina, which has faced severe drought in recent years.

Holly Irwin, a member of the La Paz County Board of Supervisors, has long opposed Fondmonte using water in the county. She said she had been responding to complaints from residents for years that it was getting harder to pump water from nearby wells and had repeatedly asked the state to do something about it.

“Everything needs to be pumped out of the ground, and there has to be some kind of regulation,” said Irwin.