(单词翻译:单击)
听力文本
From VOA Learning English, this is the Agriculture Report.
Cassava is an important crop in some countries. More than 160 million people across Africa depend on the plant for food or to earn money. The continent produces 60 percent of the world's cassava crop. The United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization reported last May that cassava production has increased by 60 percent worldwide since 2000.
Agricultural experts had been expecting it to grow even more during the next ten years as policy makers begin to understand the crop better, but those expectations have been crashed. The amount of cassava being grown in east and central Africa is falling because of diseases that reduce production.
A woman peels cassava to make cassava flour in a market in Lagos, Nigeria, May 2013.
Two such diseases of the cassava brown streak virus and cassava mosaic virus, they are wrecking Africa's agricultural lands. The UN's Food and Agriculture Organization says, brown streak disease does more damage since it affects the root of the crop.
Luca Alinovi is the acting director of the FAO in eastern and central Africa. He says the agency has taken steps to improve the situation, but it is not getting better.
"Doing right or wrong on cassava has a huge impact on the food security of the people in this region, has such a relevance in our daily lives that we tend to forget it because it appeared in a kind of technical discussion. And I want to bring to your attention that, although it is a technical issue it requires knowledge and requires research."
Dominique Davoux heads the European Union Rural Development and Agricultural program in Kenya. He says the cassava diseases have changed over the years, he says there is need to invest in research to fight the diseases.
"We supported the cassava initially, there has been [a] stop in the support, the research slugged [lagged] behind, and the disease reinvented itself [and] propagated again. We have to re-address the issue."
The FAO says at least $100 million is needed. Some of the money would go to support clean farm production, collect information and study the diseases. The rest will go to market and micro-finance development across the cassava production chain.
Experts say failure to do so means the cassava disease will likely invade Nigeria, the biggest producer of cassava in Africa.
And that's the Agriculture Report from VOA Learning English. You can download transcripts and MP3s of all of our programs at our website,learningenglish@voanews.com. You can also find captioned videos at the VOA Learning English channel on YouTube. I'm Milagros Ardin.
译文属可可原创，仅供学习交流使用，未经许可请勿转载
词汇解释
1.cassava n. 木薯（等于cassawa）
Main grain crop has cassava, taro, corn, banana to wait.
主要粮食作物有木薯、芋头、玉米、芭蕉等。
2.wreck vt. 破坏；使失事；拆毁 vi. 失事；营救失事船只
The rice mill was wrecked by the enemy bombing.
碾米厂遭到了敌机的轰炸。
3.reinvent vt. 重新使用；彻底改造；重复发明（在不知他人已发明的情况下）
They were reinventing the powder which had been invented by Chinese people two hundred years ago.
他们正在重复发明二百年前中国人已经发明的火药。
4.micro-finance 小额信贷
Today there are microfinance providers all over the world.
如今，这种小额信贷的提供者遍布全世界。
内容解析
1.He says the agency has taken steps to improve the situation, but it is not getting better.
take step to 采取措施做某事
They took steps to prevent the spread of influenza.
他们采取措施阻止流感的传播。
We took steps to ensure that rules should be faithfully carried.
我们采取了措施，以确保这些规章会不折不扣地得到贯彻。
2.Doing right or wrong on cassava has a huge impact on the food security of the people in this region, has such a relevance in our daily lives that we tend to forget it because it appeared in a kind of technical discussion.
tend to 趋向；注意；易于；有…的倾向
Her style tends to elaboration.
她的文风倾向于雕琢。
This policy tends to the improvement of economic results.
这一政策有助于提高经济效益。
参考译文
这里是美国之音慢速英语农业报道。
木薯在一些国家是重要的作物，整个非洲有1.6亿以上的人依靠这种作物作为食物和经济来源。这片大陆的木薯产量占全世界的60%，联合国粮农组织今年5月报道称，2000年以来全世界的木薯产量增加了60%。
现在各国决策者对木薯了解得更多，因此农业专家希望能种植更多木薯，但这些期望都落空了。由于发生导致减产的疾病，东非和中非的木薯种植量正在减少。
木薯褐色条纹病毒和木薯花叶病毒正在破坏非洲的农田，联合国粮农组织称褐色条斑病造成的损害更大，因为它影响了作物的根部。
卢卡是粮农组织驻东非和中非的代理主任，他说该机构已采取措施来改善现状，但情况并没有好转。
“木薯问题对整个地区人民的粮食安全有着重大的影响，和我们的日常生活息息相关，但由于它出现在技术讨论中，所以我们往往会忽视它。我想让大家注意的是，尽管这是个技术问题，却需要知识和研究。”
多米尼克是欧盟农村发展和农业项目驻肯尼亚负责人，他说过去几年木薯疾病已经发生变化，需要进行投资以对付这些疾病。
“我们一开始支持过木薯，后来暂停过，研究也就落后了，这种疾病发生自我进化并再度繁殖，我们必须再度解决这个问题。”
粮农组织称至少需要一亿美元的资金，部分资金将用于支持清洁农业生产、收集信息和研究疾病。其余用于木薯生产链上的市场和小额贷款发展。
专家称做不到这一点意味着木薯疾病将危害到尼日利亚，该国是非洲最大的木薯生产国。
这里是美国之音慢速英语农业报道，你可登陆网站learningenglish@voanews.com下载所有节目的文本、音频，还可在YouTube上找到慢速英语的视频，我是Milagros Ardin。
