From Sharqia to Rome to Fresno: Renowned irrigation expert comes to UC ANR

Atef Swelam begins as director of Kearney and West Side Research and Extension Centers
In the fields around the Egyptian city of Minya Al-Qamh, “port of wheat” in Arabic, a boy rubbed his eyes wearily as he helped his father irrigate their crops at 2 a.m. – when they could access the scarce water that reached their farm, located at the tail end of the canal. The family, which had been farming the land around the village of Sharqia for many generations, barely had enough…