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Saudi Arabia
Traditional Agriculture and Pastoral Nomadism
In the past, the bulk of agricultural production was concentrated
in a few limited areas. The produce was largely retained by these
communities although some surplus was sold to the cities. Nomads
played a crucial role in this regard, shipping foods and other
goods between the widely dispersed agricultural areas. Livestock
rearing was shared between the sedentary communities and nomads,
who also used it to supplement their precarious livelihoods.
Lack of water has always been the major constraint on agriculture
and the determining factor on where cultivation occurred. The
kingdom has no lakes or rivers. Rainfall is slight and irregular
over most of the country. Only in the southwest, in the mountains
of Asir, close to the Yemen border and accounting for 3 percent
of the land area, was rainfall sufficient to support regular crops.
This region plus the southern Tihamah coastal plains sustained
subsistence farming. Cropping in the rest of the country was scattered
and dependent on irrigation. Along the western coast and in the
western highlands, groundwater from wells and springs provided
adequate water for selfsupporting farms and, to some extent, for
commercial production. Moving east, in the central and northern
parts of the interior, Najd and An Nafud, some groundwater allowed
limited farming. The Eastern Province supported the most extensive
plantation economy. The major oasis centered around Al Qatif,
which enjoyed high water tables, natural springs, and relatively
good soils.
Historically, the limited arable land and the near absence of
grassland forced those raising livestock into a nomadic pattern
to take advantage of what forage was available. Only in summer,
the year's driest time, did the nomad keep his animals around
an oasis or well for water and forage. The beduin developed special
skills knowing where rain had fallen and forage was available
to feed their animals and where they could find water en route
to various forage areas.
Traditionally, beduin were not self-sufficient but needed some
food and materials from agricultural settlements. The near constant
movement required to feed their animals limited other activities,
such as weaving. The settled farmers and traders needed the nomads
to tend this camels. Nomads would graze and breed animals belonging
to sedentary farmers in return for portions of the farmers' produce.
Beduin groups contracted to provide protection to the agricultural
and market areas they frequented in return for such provisions
as dates, cloth, and equipment. Beduin further supplemented their
income by taxing caravans for passage and protection through their
territory.
Beduin themselves needed protection. Operating in small independent
groups of a few households, they were vulnerable to raids by other
nomads and therefore formed larger groups, such as tribes. The
tribe was responsible for avenging attacks on any of its members.
Tribes established territories that they defended vigorously.
Within the tribal area, wells and springs were found and developed.
Generally, the developers of a water source, such as a well, retained
rights to it unless they abandoned it. This system created problems
for nomads because many years might elapse between visits to a
well they had dug. If people from another tribe just used the
well, the first tribe could frequently establish that the well
was in territory where they had primary rights; but if another
tribe improved the well, primary rights became difficult to establish.
By the early twentieth century, control over land, water rights,
and intertribal and intratribal relationships were highly developed
and complex (see Beduin Economy in Tradition and Change , ch.
2).
Data as of December 1992
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