Data Dump: The alfalfa question

On hay, cheeseburgers, and a cultural landscape built on inefficiency

Alfalfa fields in La Paz County, Arizona. Many of the fields pictured are owned by Fondomonte Farms, a wholly owned subsidiary of Saudi Arabian food and beverage giant Almarai, which touts itself as the world’s largest vertically integrated dairy company. Almarai boasts that it imports 100% of the feed for its livestock from abroad “to preserve the loca…