How does a desert country grow tomatoes, peppers, and dates on a fraction of the water its neighbours use, after a 1930s water engineer noticed a leaking pipe made a tree grow faster?

In 1959, a Kibbutz Hatzerim engineer noticed one tree growing taller than its neighbours because of a leaking pipe. The observation became drip irrigation — and the first layer of a stack of technologies that now lets Israel grow tomatoes, peppers and dates in the Negev while the wider Middle East runs dry. The post How does a desert country grow tomatoes, peppers, and dates on a fraction of the…