, Arizona’s attorney general called for an investigation into a 2015 sweetheart deal between the Saudi agribusiness company Fondomonte and the Arizona State Land Department, which had allowed Fondomonte to lease desert farmland west of Phoenix at one-sixth its market value and pump groundwater from Phoenix’s water reserves. Geographer Natalie Koch, a professor at Syracuse University who grew up in Arizona and studies the Arabian Peninsula, began researching the deal in 2018. In doing so, she discovered that the arrangement was not an anomaly, but rather part of a long history of collaboration between Arizona and the Arabian Peninsula. spoke with Koch about her book , out this January from Verso Books, which delves into the
