flash floods have hit parts of Saudi Arabia as heavy rainfall has been recorded across the kingdom since last week Saudi Arabia is known for its hostile climate of little rainfall being a conglomerate of mostly desert and partly arid lands the land has been far from Green however a shocking phenomenon is currently happening in the desert land surprisingly the desert is rapidly turning into fertile farmlands and this is a shocking phenomenon to even scientists what is happening in this desert keep watching this video to find out before we go into details of the causes of the increasingly miraculous farmlands in Saudi Arabia it might do you some good to know how dry this country initially was we had long known an Associated Saudi Arabia with scorching heat dryness and deserts this was right in fact Saudi Arabia is the home of the world's largest desert rub al-jali with an expanse of 650 000 square kilometers this in fact was the size of a whole country again do you know that this country the 14th largest country in the world with a Total Landscape of 2. 14 square kilometers does not have a single permanent River if you think you've heard it all relax because we're just getting started we said earlier that Saudi Arabia is one country with very little rainfall now let's be specific historically the country has never seen an annual rainfall of more than 150 millimeters this needs to be a better ratio because of this a large part of Saudi Arabia has been majorly dry leaving just a small part of the southwest region for planting even up until the late 1960s the country was recorded to still have as low as 400 square kilometers of fertile land this is 0. 5 percent of the entire country at this point you may wonder how the citizens had survived in terms of agricultural products well the answer is plausible before the country started experiencing a breakthrough in the increase of farmlands the citizens survived mainly by planting small Fields with local crops in contrast all other necessary food items that could not be planted were imported at that time narrow strips of coastal lines were the only planting area and only a few crops like dates and vegetables were grown with a country that big this limitation was no good news now let's talk about the miraculous oil Dam a crucial element in the shocking increasing farmlands in Saudi Arabia though the country lacked water it definitely needed more in fact Saudi Arabia turns out to be a country with the world's largest oil Reserve well as they say God deposits something in everyone that makes them special this proved true for Saudi Arabia when somewhere in March 1934 a large amount of crude oil was discovered in a dam oil field the dam went so deep that it reached a depth of 1440 meters thus the country soon became a holder of about 17 percent of the world's identified petroleum reserves this Reserve was estimated to be around 75 million barrels of oil so with the wealth in oil resources the Saudi Arabian government thought it could do more and thus the process of the miracle of rapidly increasing farmlands began fast forwarding to the present Saudi Arabia can now be added to the modern Seven Wonders of the World this is because what used to be a center of importation of food items is now a center of exportation of wheat date dairy products eggs fish poultry birds fruits vegetables and even flowers but how did the fortune of a country that was nearly all desert change from a food importer to a food exporter what are the Saudi Arabians doing that we don't know though it appears to be so the fact that the desert lands of Saudi Arabia are rapidly turning to fertile farmlands is no magic at all while some contributing factors were pure luck a larger percentage of the causes of this shocking phenomenon resulted from a combination of deliberate plans and actions carried out by the Saudi Arabian government but what exactly did they do well hang on as I take you through the Strategic processes alongside the lucky occurrences that turned a desert into fertile land first they invested massively in technology this is because technological equipment was needed to provide everything that would transform desert land into fertile farmlands so the agricultural state of Saudi Arabia has been transformed through massive investment in programs that promote modern farming technology and Rural infrastructural elements being a country immensely enriched with oil the government of Saudi Arabia didn't sit back and relax instead they channeled the nation's resources into developing fertile grounds for the people early in their investment Venture the government had focused intensively on establishing facilities for producing Dairy meats and poultry food by 1985 the nation had started swimming in self-sufficiency with products like meat milk and eggs not only were they self-sufficient but they became massive exporters of agricultural products as well also during this period there was a massive output of milk production which amounted to about 1800 gallons per cow annually Fish Farms were also on the rise these Farms were established in locations that were both on land and at sea the establishment of these Fish Farms led to the production of seafood amongst this Seafood the shrimps were highly enriching for the country consequently Saudi Arabia became a massive shrimp exporter to countries like Japan and the USA seals of the black tiger breed of shrimps were particularly successful also because of the efforts put in by the governments of Saudi Arabia the nation soon moved quickly from being an importer of wheat to an exporter of the same wheat silos built in 1978 soon became wheat sufficient in 1984.
major grain producing districts into POC Hall and kazim now have an output of about 3. 6 tons of wheat per acre there were also Productions of other grains like barley and Millet after a while grain production became so massive that it had to be curtailed to conserve water resources as farming and transportation methods improved there was an increase in the production of essential Farm produce like fruits and vegetables consequently products like watermelon grape citrus fruits onions squash and tomatoes were famous in the area and were major items of exportation again what the increase in farming activities meant for the people of Saudi Arabia was an increase in the availability of local Cuisines these cousins included dates consequently about half a million tons of dates were produced annually in different varieties soon many factories within the country became actively involved in the production of tens of thousands of tons of dates to help alleviate poverty and food shortages worldwide the nation became so active in foreign aid that it became the second largest contributor to food Aid in the U.