Santiago Times: Last year the river in Petorca ran dry, leaving a dusty brown ditch running through the once fertile valley in Chile's Valparaso Region, home to 40 percent of the country's avocado production.
The area, forming part of the "norte-chico" zone that starts north of Santiago and runs all the way to the southern edge of the Atacama Desert, contains some of Chile's most important agriculture pockets. It's also one of the driest parts of the country.
Here, almost all the rain falls over a short...