What happens when your ancient desert springs start drying up? Why, you find another source, of course!

Saudi Arabia is almost out of water. For decades, farmers drilled for groundwater to transform their deserts into irrigated fields suitable for crops. Note how the area in the Wadi As-Sirhan Basin changed between 1987 and 2000.

Reveal’s Nathan Halverson and Ike Sriskandarajah don’t travel quite that far to get the story.

Last year, Saudi Arabia’s largest dairy company, Almarai, bought 9,600 acres of land in a desert in the American Southwest. The company then converted it into hay fields to feed – get this – cows back home.