WATER SECURITYArizona Is Evicting a Saudi Alfalfa Farm, but the Thirsty Crop Isn’t Going Anywhere
As Arizona struggles to adapt to a water shortage that has dried out farms and scuttled development plans, one company has emerged as a central villain. The agricultural company Fondomonte, which is owned by a Saudi Arabian conglomerate, has attracted criticism over the past several years for sucking up the state’s groundwater to grow alfalfa and then exporting that alfalfa to feed cows overseas. Now Arizona has cancelled one of the company’s leases and says it will not renew the others, but the decision will do little to solve a water shortage largely driven by irrigated agriculture.
As Arizona struggles to adapt to a water shortage that has dried out farms and scuttled development plans, one company has emerged as a central villain. The agricultural company Fondomonte, which is owned by a Saudi Arabian conglomerate, has attracted tremendous criticism over the past several years for sucking up the state’s groundwater to grow alfalfa and then exporting that alfalfa to feed cows overseas.
Governor Katie Hobbs responded to those calls for action on Monday when she canceled one of Fondomonte’s four leases in the state’s rural Butler Valley and pledged not to renew the other leases when they expire next year. Hobbs, a Democrat who took office earlier this year, said in a statement about the decision that the company “was operating in clear default” of its lease and had violated state laws around hazardous waste. She also pledged to “hold defaulting, high-volume water users accountable” and “protect Arizona’s water so we can sustainably grow for generations to come.”
That will require Hobbs to tackle a problem that is larger than just one company. Agriculture accounts for around three-quarters of Arizona’s water use, and alfalfa is one of the most water-intensive crops in the West. The state may have managed to fend off one egregious company, but fixing the region’s overall water deficit will involve much harder political and economic choices.
“I think the governor was looking for a reason to cancel these leases,” said Kathleen Ferris, a senior research fellow at Arizona State University’s Kyl Center for Water Policy and an architect of the state’s landmark 1980 groundwater law. “But the bigger problem is unregulated use of groundwater in rural areas of the state. That’s the big elephant in the room — we are just not addressing this use of groundwater, and it’s finite.”
Fondomonte’s aggressive water use in Butler Valley has drawn attention to Arizona’s lax groundwater regulations and the high water demand of crops like alfalfa. The state has set limits on groundwater pumping around population centers like Phoenix and Tucson, but companies in rural areas can still pump as much as they want with no restrictions, even if that means sucking water away from neighboring homes and businesses.
