Most agricultural practices and techniques have been developed for the black soil belts of the Earth. Those belts are surprisingly small but they produce the bulk of global food. Their soil is first class or close to it, the climatic conditions are good enough for good harvests, and weather events tend to be on the mild side.
That being said, practices that work there also work somewhere else but with far less encouraging results. Dry regions have much less access to water for a start so where water is virtually free, here it carries a steep price tag. Also, dry regions often have very poor soil for agriculture and need massive amounts of preparation as well as fertilizer without which harvests drop steeply. Thats an issue especially when fertilizer becomes sparse and costs a premium.
But some have used the conditions in dry regions or even deserts to their benefit such as Israel which pioneered drip irrigation. Israel is still a pioneer and a net food exporter but its agricultural sector is also decades old. Old structures often ossify and keep doing what gave them good results in the past, limiting radical innovation. that may be a good thing sometimes but we have technologies in broad use today that did not even exist two decades ago.
There is still plenty of room at the bottom.
Saudi Arabia wants to become a net food exporter by 2030. Thats a bold objective – it won’t be achieved through inaction.
