In satellite images, the desert is dotted with dotted green discs, creating a rare desert landscape.

If we zoom in on the satellite map, we will find that these are actually green circles of different sizes, are the imaginative Saudis, who spent nearly 30 years to create a green desert miracle —— Round farm.

By building a “The Line” linear city in the desert and turning the desert directly into farmland, Saudi Arabia has turned its fate to the extreme.

But perhaps you are more curious about how did the Saudis transform their barren desert into fertile farmland? Why do the Saudis have to grow crops in circles?

Saudi Arabia is the second largest desert country in the world, with an area of 2.25 million square kilometers, but the desert area accounts for 860,000 square kilometers. The desert is covered by the Great Nevde Desert, and the whole of the south is covered by the Rubali Desert, which is also the largest mobile desert in the world. Most of Saudi Arabia has a subtropical desert climate, with hot and dry summers and little rainfall throughout the year. For the Saudis, they have hardly seen more than 150 mm of annual rainfall. “Drought” and “desert” have plagued generations of Saudis and greatly limited the agricultural development of Saudi Arabia.

Unable to grow large amounts of grain,at one point, the Saudi grain self-sufficiency rate was just over 20 percent, for a long time, Saudi Arabia relies only on imports to feed its more than 30 million people.

Saudi Arabia is short of water, but Saudi Arabia is not short of oil, its proven oil reserves rank second in the world, and Saudi Arabia makes full use of its oil resources, Using large-scale investment,It has promoted the development of modern agricultural technology and established the central pivot irrigation system.

Central axis irrigation also greatly saves labor costs, coupled with the semi-automatic nature of the machine and the lateral movement of the sprinkler head, which also allows farmers to better control and manage the water level. The center pivot irrigation system is widely used, and it can water almost all types of crops. And not only spray water, it can also be used to spray fertilizer, pesticides and so on.

In the long run, the biggest benefit of this irrigation method is that it saves water resources and improves the water consumption efficiency, as the water consumption efficiency of the central pivot irrigation machine is close to 80%. Today, about two-thirds of Saudi Arabia’s farmland are fed with central axis irrigation, and many more are springing up.