IN 1977, John Lawton arrived in Saudi Arabia on a “five-year plan.” Since then, he has been through six more “five-year plans” and now, half way through his seventh one, he is still here, based in Riyadh. Lawton studied at the Seale Hayne Agricultural College in Newton Abbott in Devon, UK, and then worked for ICI in the Agricultural Division for ten years. He then answered an advertisement in the Farmers Weekly. At his interview, he was asked: “What on earth do you want to go to Saudi for?” His interviewer was one of the McGuckian brothers who had set up Masstock, later to become Al-Marai, and Lawton's answer was to fire the question back. This was the time when the first dairy farms and center pivot irrigation were being pioneered by Masstock/Al- Marai in the Haradh area of Saudi Arabia. “In those days, it was the biggest farm in Saudi Arabia. I was one of the first employees and it was two very interesting years. It was the first center pivot when we started – there must be 60,000 in Saudi now.” The farm initially grew Rhodes grass, alfalfa, millet and a few other crops. They also did the original trials on wheat production in Saudi Arabia. “One variety was the Mexican wheat, Yecror Rojo, which almost everybody now uses. It is excellent for bread making. At that time, the other crops were for sheep feed because we had about 50,000 head of sheep – they were the only livestock on the farm when I took it over and then we phased in a small dairy farm with 300 cows.” In those days, Lawton was accompanied by his wife, a son aged 4 and a nine-month-old daughter. “It was very different then because all the work was done by British expats. We had sixty of them on the farm and we ran a school. We also had 1,200 Saudis working for us as well. I used to pay them in cash once a month and 80 percent of them signed with a thumb print.” “The journey from Riyadh to Haradh was a 300 km drive of which the first 80 km was on asphalt and the remaining 220 km through the desert; you had to take the tire pressures down to 10 psi and drive on soft sand for about 40 km. Navigation was by a star at night, and by the railroad in the daytime – there was a railroad going right across the desert.” Lawton went on to reminisce about Riyadh. “In those days it was like a village, a lot of it still mud brick. The InterContinental Hotel had just opened, a week or two before I came. Hotel rooms were almost impossible to get and we slept in a villa with up to eight of us in a room. Batha Street was only partly paved, and it had an open sewer running through it, which flooded in the winter and ran like a river. The town finished at the top end of “Pepsi Road” roundabout.” Lawton's career in agriculture took him through the transition of the Al-Marai farm to when it became the National Agricultural Development Company (NADEC). He went on to work with Saudi Agricultural Enterprises International, then Al-Quraiyef, and eventually five years with Golden Grass. In 1992, he began working independently as a Consultant and currently operates his own agricultural specialist organization, Agricultural Technology Company. “We specialize in the consultation and design of feed milling, and particularly waste processing, and all the associated equipment, including the supply of that equipment, and support services.” He expanded on the recycling of waste: “Manure from chickens and cows, and shredded waste from date palms and other fruit trees, is used to form compost.” He explained that a lot of waste still receives what was called the “Swan Vesta baler treatment” – it is burned. “We used to burn all the straw, but now that is highly valued so it is baled and sold.” Another area where he sees enormous potential is in the vast quantities of residue from the extensive date palm plantations in the Kingdom. “The key is to find a productive and profitable way for the farmers to collect it so that it can be transformed into fiberboard for making such things as furniture.” Lawton is lucky to have been able to see through his successive five-year plans: early on in Haradh, he gave chase at night to some Bedouin who had stolen some hay bales. As he drew up alongside them, the passenger pulled out a revolver and shot him. The bullet struck his head knocking him unconscious, and he came round to find that his vehicle had also been stoned and every window in it broken and the keys removed. He walked back to the farm in the dark, and was taken to the hospital in Hofuf, a converted prison. After observing the X-ray on his head, the Egyptian doctor told him that “There is nothing there”, to which Lawton replied with classic British humor: “I have always known that!”
