Gulf looks overseas for food sources: SFGATE

Adam Schreck, Associated Press

In the dunes around this sun-scorched desert village, where camels still plod along dusty roads an hour south of Dubai's skyscrapers, they're making the wasteland bloom.

Row upon row of bell peppers grow plump in a temperature-controlled greenhouse. Lilies and roses bud nearby, and strawberries are on their way, all thanks to sophisticated water-saving irrigation.

Yet even high-tech establishments like the Mirak Agricultural Services farms here and elsewhere in this riverless country will never feed the region's rapidly growing population. It's that realization that is persuading wealthy Gulf Arabs to look far beyond their shores for more fertile acreage - tens of thousands of acres, in some cases.

There are simply too many mouths to feed and not enough water. Lush urban landscaping and ambitious agricultural projects here and in Saudi Arabia - which once spent so much on farm subsidies that it exported surplus wheat - are quickly draining aquifers, including some that are millennia old and cannot be refilled.

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