Growing more Food with less Water.

Six thousand years ago farmers in Mesopotamia dug a ditch to divert water from the Euphrates River. With that successful effort to satisfy their thirsty crops, they went on to form the world's first irrigation-based civilization. This story of the ancient Sumerians is well known. What is not so well known is that Sumeria was one of the earliest civilizations to crumble in part because of the consequences of irrigation.