In the late 1960's the West Australian Govt sold a heap of farming equipment such as wheeltractors, seeders, scarifiers, harvesters, etc., to the Libyan Govt for the startup of a large farming arrangement under one of Ghaddafis "green the desert" expansive programmes.
A group of local farmers went to Libya to train up the locals in how to operate and maintain the farming equipment. They mostly came back pretty disgusted with the material they had to work with.
When one posed a question as to how the programme progressed, a typical answer was, "You'd teach them how to drive the tractor, check the fluids, and carry out basic maintenance - then a week later they'd forgotten more than half of what you'd taught them."
"You can't take people who are still 5th century donkey-and-camel-riding peasants with backward ideas, and expect them to move smoothly into the operation of 20th century technology. The whole exercise was a total WOFTAM."
I understand most of the farming equipment supplied was either wrecked or abandoned as the peasants charged with its operation and upkeep failed to keep up even basic maintenance.
Once repairs were required, it was beyond any of them to repair the machines, so they were abandoned as soon as they broke down.
I believe Ghaddafi eventually managed to get large centre-pivot irrigation plots in place, after the expenditure of multiple billions of dollars.
I have no doubt it was all done with imported technology, imported workers, and imported skills (at least on the management side).
It probably would have been a lot cheaper for Ghaddafi to just import the grains and other cereals required from other countries that produce them cheaply and efficiently.
Here's a link (below) to a report on the futile exercises of both the South Australian and West Australian Govts into setting up similar agricultural operations in Iraq. The story reads like a Hollywood script.
You cannot establish stable structures and organisation in amongst permanently unstable people, who inhabit permanently unstable regions, and who ensure that those regions remain permanently unstable.
The only way they gain a semblance of stability is when a ruthless, murderous dictator arises and rules the region with an iron fist.
1980's Australian efforts in the Iraq Agricultural arena