Ilyas Alsayed

I sit at my desk in Riyadh, Saudi-Arabia, staring at my thesis draft. The Al-Safi dairy farm, deep in the Rub al-Khali desert, seemed like a miracle at first. Fifty thousand cows, milked by robots, producing 800,000 liters of milk per day. It felt like a triumph—agriculture thriving in the harshest of deserts. But now, after months of research and a visit to the farm, I feel differently.

The desert is unforgiving. At 55°C, the heat is overwhelming. Inside the barns, massive cooling systems run constantly—fans and water sprayers keep the cows comfortable at 27°C. But this comes at a cost. To produce one liter of milk, the farm uses 100 liters of water just for cooling. The numbers are staggering: 80 million liters of water consumed every single day. All of it drawn from ancient groundwater reserves, which are rapidly depleting.

The more I researched, the more I realized how unsustainable it all is. Groundwater levels have been dropping by six meters every year since the 1980s. Experts say the reserves could run out soon. And once they're gone, they won't come back. Rain is scarce here, and the desert offers no mercy.

Then there’s the feed. Although some fodder is grown locally, it’s not nearly enough. The desert can’t sustain large-scale crop production, so they still import tons of feed daily—hay, cornflakes, all shipped in from around the world. Cornflakes for cows in the desert. The absurdity of it all hits me every time I think about it.

I’m 23, finishing my agricultural science degree, and I can’t stop questioning everything. At first, I admired how Saudi farms like Al-Safi turned the desert into a food exporter. But the water is disappearing, and no one seems to care. How long can this go on?

Every time I drink Ayran or eat yoghurt, I think about the true cost. Most people around me don’t see it. They don’t realize how much water and effort go into producing milk here. We take from the desert, but we don’t give back. And one day, it won’t have anything left to give.