时间:2019-01-11 作者:英语课 分类:VOA慢速英语2008年(四)月


英语课
This is the VOA Special English Agriculture Report.
 






A burning barricade 1 in Port-au-Prince, Haiti



Food inflation has led to growing protests in developing countries. In Haiti, the government fell Saturday after riots in which several people died.

Some rice-producing countries have cut exports to protect their own supplies. World Bank President Robert Zoellick said last week that rice prices have risen around seventy-five percent in just two months, to near historical levels. Wheat prices have risen one hundred twenty percent in the past year.
 






Senegal has had repeated protests over food prices




Farmers are planting more wheat and rice. But population growth is raising demand. So is the use of food crops to produce biofuels. At the same time, record oil prices have meant higher costs for petroleum-based fertilizers and for energy and transportation.

Food also costs more because more people are eating meat and dairy products in growing economies like India and China. More grain is going to feed cattle.

Weather has also pushed up prices. For example, Australia, a major wheat exporter, faces a drought.

High food prices hit the poor the hardest. Agricultural economist 2 Christopher Barrett at Cornell University says many poor farmers use more of their crops than they sell. He says more investment is needed in agricultural research.

What is needed, says another expert, Gerald Nelson at the University of Illinois, is another Green Revolution to increase productivity.
 






World Bank President Robert Zoellick holds up bread as he speaks to reporters




This past weekend, the International Monetary 3 Fund and the World Bank held their spring meetings in Washington. The bank president said hunger, malnutrition 4 and food policy were a central issue.

The United Nations World Food Program has appealed for five hundred million dollars by May first. Bob Zoellick said donor 5 countries had promised almost half of the money, but that was not enough.

He said a doubling of food prices over the last three years could push one hundred million people in low-income countries deeper into poverty. And that could hurt future generations.

I.M.F. chief Dominique Strauss-Kahn said the real problem is a food deficit 6 which will probably last for years. He says it can be argued that there are good reasons, connected to climate change, to try to push countries to substitute some kind of biofuel for oil.

But he says nations have to balance the production of biofuel from food crops with biofuel from nonfood resources. Some of the finance ministers in Washington said using food for fuel is a crime against humanity.

And that's the VOA Special English Agriculture Report, written by Jerilyn Watson. I’m Jim Tedder 7.



n.路障,栅栏,障碍;vt.设路障挡住
  • The soldiers make a barricade across the road.士兵在路上设路障。
  • It is difficult to break through a steel barricade.冲破钢铁障碍很难。
n.经济学家,经济专家,节俭的人
  • He cast a professional economist's eyes on the problem.他以经济学行家的眼光审视这个问题。
  • He's an economist who thinks he knows all the answers.他是个经济学家,自以为什么都懂。
adj.货币的,钱的;通货的;金融的;财政的
  • The monetary system of some countries used to be based on gold.过去有些国家的货币制度是金本位制的。
  • Education in the wilderness is not a matter of monetary means.荒凉地区的教育不是钱财问题。
n.营养不良
  • In Africa, there are a lot of children suffering from severe malnutrition.在非洲有大批严重营养不良的孩子。
  • It is a classic case of malnutrition. 这是营养不良的典型病例。
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aerobiotic
aethiopis
aging periods
aluminum-air cell
American merlin
angariation
antenna complex
bahaization
bank of supporter
casual-dress day, casual day
characteristic vector
clavate process
combretum pilosum roxb.
computing statement
conductive salinometer
conidio-
constant input
coriaceum
decade oscillator
diamondback turtle
diurnal filariasis
drawleg
dynamic programming model
ecological boomerang
exteriorly
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go over like nine pins
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i will follow
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immersion lens
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jaagsiepte jaagsiekte
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jobmaster
kdj
lattice cell
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lyricalness
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make heavy wiather
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mid-chrome yellow paint
minehunting sonar
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mycolyl
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Nkoyé
nonclassical carbocation
onna mai (japan)
patty cake
PETALICHTHYOMORPHA
plasma thromboplastin
polar-bear
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pressed grape
previllous embryo
product metric
professional mannerism
program uncertainty
proportionality limit
puckishly
pyrilamine
q-analyses
quinoxalinedione
recoil spectrum
red and black vertical stripes buoy
relayings
scrapable
seppanen
sheepcote
shunt-regulated amplifier
skiffles
soild runoff
sond
steel-bonded carbide products
Stegolophodon
structured program
sueos
swift-handedness
swung for the fences
system integration test
table feed
tarsias
tetovo
tetramannose
thisan
titty juice
to sneeze
trisynocotyledonous
tubercle
unfragmentable
uranoscopus tosae
Wankel rotary compressor