Almarai

Saudi-Arabian farming company Fondomonte wants a judge to pause a lawsuit against it, arguing new groundwater protections could resolve the issues in the case. Arizona Attorney General Kris Mayes disagrees.

In the US, Arizona Gov. Katie Hobbs has taken a major step to stabilise water use in the state’s rural desert, where a Saudi-owned company established a massive farming operation more than a decade ago.

The Arizona state government will start limiting groundwater pumping in a desert valley where a Saudi-owned dairy company grows hay, and where aquifer levels have been dropping.

Arizona officials are considering a plan to start regulating groundwater pumping in the rural area 100 miles west of Phoenix, where Fondomonte, part of the Saudi dairy giant Almarai, operates a massive alfalfa farm

Water resource “hedge funds” and corporate farms are running the desert dry.

A judge told ranchers and cities they have no right to intervene in a lawsuit over water usage between Attorney General Kris Mayes and a Saudi-owned alfalfa farm in western Arizona, US.

A US subsidiary of Saudi dairy giant Almarai Co. is “taking advantage of Arizona’s failure to protect its precious groundwater resource,” the lawsuit says.

Almarai is venturing into seafood and red meat as part of a nearly $5 billion programme to expand its food empire

After years investing in farms overseas, the Saudi government is now stepping up efforts to attract foreign investors to its domestic agriculture sector

The attorney general of the US state of Arizona is set to launch legal proceeding in the next two weeks against the Saudi dairy company Almarai over groundwater pumping on two farms in the state.

This week's episode of Reveal looks at how Arizona pension managers fueled a crisis by investing in an agribusiness deal that depleted local water supplies.

The Butler Valley leases terminated by Arizona's governor only amount to about one quarter of Fondomonte’s total farm holdings in Arizona prior to October. Besides the 3500 acres that the company leased from the state, it privately controls almost 10,000 acres more further south and closer to Vicksburg.