时间:2019-01-11 作者:英语课 分类:VOA慢速英语2008年(二)月


英语课

This is the VOA Special English Agriculture Report.


 
A woman in Zambia with a bag of corn from the international aid group CARE
The United States provides more than half the world's food assistance. American programs totaled close to two billion dollars last year.


But critics say the current system wastes money and delays the arrival of needed food.


Under current law, United States government agencies have to buy American-produced food. And seventy-five percent of the aid must be carried on American ships.


President Bush wants to change the system. His proposal would provide food assistance by purchasing crops directly from farmers in the developing world. Money in the form of cash grants would supply about twenty-five percent of food aid.


President Bush, in his State of the Union speech last month, called on Congress to support the proposal. He said it would build up local agriculture and, in his words, "help break the cycle of famine."


Last year, Congress' Government Accountability Office reported that sixty-five percent of the money for food aid was going to costs besides food. It said rising business and transportation costs had cut the average amount of food shipped over the last five years by fifty-two percent. Yet demand has grown.


Critics among charity groups have called for changes in the system. CARE USA, a major aid group, said last year that it would not take part in the current system after two thousand nine.


But the system also has supporters among agricultural, shipping 1 and charity groups, and lawmakers in Congress. Supporters say the current system works well and that changing it could harm food aid programs. 


The continuing debate over the most effective ways to provide food aid is not the only agriculture-related issue in Washington. Congress has been working for months on a major farm bill.


The House of Representatives and the Senate passed similar versions of legislation last year. President Bush says he may veto the final bill that reaches him. He says it would cost too much in its present form. He wants to end subsidy 2 payments to farmers who earn a lot for their crops.


The president has a new agriculture secretary to deal with these issues. Former North Dakota governor Ed Schafer was sworn into office in late January. He replaced Mike Johanns, who resigned to run for the United States Senate from Nebraska.


And that’s the VOA Special English Agriculture Report, written by Jerilyn Watson. I’m Doug Johnson.


 



n.船运(发货,运输,乘船)
  • We struck a bargain with an American shipping firm.我们和一家美国船运公司谈成了一笔生意。
  • There's a shipping charge of £5 added to the price.价格之外另加五英镑运输费。
n.补助金,津贴
  • The university will receive a subsidy for research in artificial intelligence.那个大学将得到一笔人工智能研究的补助费。
  • The living subsidy for senior expert's family is included in the remuneration.报酬已包含高级专家家人的生活补贴。
标签: voa 慢速英语
学英语单词
a. perinealis
accrued charge
acoustic magnetic mine
adlecting
administration of internal affairs
Aflogualnum
ai chi
alternative procedure
ampholite
art and part
artificial caving
assidue
base of petroleum
black cottonwood
blue-green bacterium
bursting speed
cascading down
centricdiatom
cloud-bases
complementary scale
consistorial
conventional-arms
counter-cast
Crista sacralis intermedia
Cynwyl Elfed
Daphne holosericea
departmental arrangement and distribution in commodity stock
Direct Copper Blue 2R
disinflations
drip channel
event oriented simulation
eye-serve
factorization method
facular
Fentathienil
flower
geomagnetic periodic variation
go yachting.
group demodulator filter
harpending
hepatitis sequestrans
information management program
initial overburden pressure
insulation varnish
intrapore
inverse beta process
journal box lid hinge
lanatest
light pressure separator
Lothair
megalodiscs
merry-go-round
monoethanolamine(surfactant)
moving current-weighted Passche indexes
neutralizing water tank
new staff
Nihon-maru
non-specified-time relay
nuclear quadrupole spectrum
oil pressure switch
one-cancels-the-other order
orbit maneuver engine
output transfer function
Pare's suture
plain shank
plant hole
poikilosmotic character
preregeneration
progressive wave
pushback
put somebody up to
RCITR
reducing capacity
reductive alkylation
regional index call warrant
RFRNA
Rhodiola wallichiana
Richardson's ground squirrel
rosette phyllotaxy
semi-tractor
sexlessnesses
sgd.
shell tuck
sickling diathesis
simple deterministic language
spaces out
spantik
spread back
sugarcane top
system of gravitational unit
tea-tree
telephone bills
tiled mode
use test
vendibler
vertical decomposition
voltage and frequency response
wear plate
Y ligament
Yang Shiying
zori