{"id":371,"date":"2010-03-02T18:38:04","date_gmt":"2010-03-02T15:38:04","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.tfrasheed.org\/e\/?p=371"},"modified":"2024-04-14T15:54:16","modified_gmt":"2024-04-14T12:54:16","slug":"saudis-back-to-the-farm","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.tfrasheed.org\/e\/saudis-back-to-the-farm\/","title":{"rendered":"Saudis \u2018Back to the Farm\u2019?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.tfrasheed.org\/e\/saudis-%e2%80%98back-to-the-farm%e2%80%99\/center-pivot\/\" rel=\"attachment wp-att-372\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-372\" title=\"center pivot\" src=\"https:\/\/www.tfrasheed.org\/e\/wp-content\/uploads\/center-pivot.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"145\" height=\"108\"><\/a><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">An interesting article in <em>Arab News<\/em>, though I think the expert being quoted is off-target on several points. <strong>Turki Al-Rasheed<\/strong> notes that water is a problem, but he says that \u2018renewable water\u2019 could be recaptured in run-off. Frankly, other than sewage water, which could be renewed and recycled, I don\u2019t know what water he\u2019s talking about. His mention of \u2018dams\u2019 suggests he mean run-off from rain storms, but that is both unpredictable and impractical in widespread areas.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">He appears to be politically tone deaf when he says that rather than leasing lands in Africa and Asia for agriculture, Saudis should be buying it outright. Leases avoid the taint of \u2018colonialism\u2019\u2014overwrought criticism, but still leveled against these projects. Leases allow for the easy and scheduled repatriation of land; ownership would require nationalization by the various countries, an act that carries its own, negative taint.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">Al-Rasheed does note that genetically modified (GM) crops provide part of the answer. I think he\u2019s right there: some GM crops have been developed that deal well both with higher salinity and less water. More might be developed, but it\u2019s not a total solution.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">Al-Rasheed also seems to believe that a broad agricultural base would provide job opportunities for large numbers of Saudis. Theoretically, perhaps it would. In the past, it in fact did provide the livelihood for a great portion of the Saudi population. Given the current Saudi attitudes toward manual labor, however, I\u2019m not sure the concept would work. I just don\u2019t see thousands of Saudi university graduates flocking to the fields to find jobs.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">What we\u2019re left with, I think, is a man making a special pleading for his own business and business sector. Unfortunately, both geological fact and sociological and political currents are running against him.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">http:\/\/xrdarabia.org\/2010\/02\/19\/saudis-back-to-the-farm\/<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Al-Rasheed does note that genetically modified (GM) crops provide part of the answer. I think he\u2019s right there: some GM crops have been developed that deal well both with higher salinity and less water. More might be developed, but it\u2019s not a total solution.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":372,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[40],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-371","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-daily-articles"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tfrasheed.org\/e\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/371","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tfrasheed.org\/e\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tfrasheed.org\/e\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tfrasheed.org\/e\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/7"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tfrasheed.org\/e\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=371"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"https:\/\/www.tfrasheed.org\/e\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/371\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7701,"href":"https:\/\/www.tfrasheed.org\/e\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/371\/revisions\/7701"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tfrasheed.org\/e\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/372"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tfrasheed.org\/e\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=371"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tfrasheed.org\/e\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=371"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tfrasheed.org\/e\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=371"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}