(单词翻译:单击)
听力文本
From VOA Leaning English, this is the Agriculture Report.
The United Nations says the world's population will increase by 34 percent by the year 2050. Scientists and others know it will be difficult to meet the food needs of so many people. A recent study shows that soybean crops and computers may help deal with the problem.
The U.N. predicts food production must increase by 70 percent to meet the needs of a richer population. The U.N. expects more people will live in cities than in rural areas. But today there is little too low increase in the productivity of major crops.
Kenneth Quinn is the president of the World Food Prize Foundation. He says the need to increase food production is the greatest difficulty humanity has ever faced.
"There's going to be another 2 billion people on our planet between now and 2050 and how are we going to produce enough food for them to eat?" asked Quinn.
Darren Drewry is a scientist at the American Space Agency, NASA. He led a study of soybeans which NASA calls the world's most important protein crop. He says researchers using a computer were surprised to find that they were able to create a soybean plant that can be both more productive and use less water.
"We find that there are changes to the architecture of modern soybean cultivars can be made to help us improve on many of these goals," said Drewry.
Researchers were able to increase soybean productivity by 7 percent without using more water. The computer helped researchers do work that would have taken many years in the field. The next step is to test the computer's design.
We spoke to Stephen Long about that. He is a professor at the University of Illinois, and one of the writers of the report on the soybean study. He told us by Skype that researchers used computer program to study what would happen if they changed the way the plant grows.
"One of the things the modeling predicted is that there's too much leaf area so we're actually removing leaves as the plant's growing to get a lower leaf area. We're also artificially modifying the angle of the leaves as well to reflect what the model predicted," said Long.
Professor Long says it is important to find solutions to the predicted global food shortage before it happens. He says it will be 20 years before farmers can begin growing a more productive soybean once they have developed it.
The study on soybeans was published in the journal Global Change Biology. The National Science Foundation, NASA and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation paid for the study.
And that's the VOA Learning English Agriculture Report. I'm Caty Weaver.
文本来自51voa，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.soybean n. 大豆；黄豆
Armiger found differential tolerance to Al among soybean varieties.
阿尔米格尔发现大豆各品种对铝有不同的耐性。
2.cultivar n. 培育植物；栽培变种
Golden Delicious is a very fruitful cultivar.
金冠是一个非常丰产的品种。
3.artificially adv. 人工地；人为地；不自然地
The cows are artificially inseminated .
这些母牛被人工授精。
内容解析
1.The National Science Foundation, NASA and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation paid for the study.
pay for 赔偿；为…而付钱；为…付出代价
Of course, I'm quite willing to pay for the lost bike.
当然，遗失了自行车我愿意赔偿。
You have acted foolishly and you will pay for it.
你干了些蠢事，你会因此而得到报应。
参考译文
这里是美国之音慢速英语农业报道。
联合国称到2050年全世界人口将增加34%，科学家等人知道要满足这么多人的食物需求很难。最近的研究发现大豆作物和电脑能帮助解决这一问题。
联合国预测粮食生产必须增加70%才能满足更加富裕人口的需要，联合国预计生活在城市的人将超过居住在农村的人口数。但如今主要作物的生产量增加还很低。
达伦·德鲁里是世界粮食奖基金会主席，他说增加粮食产量是人类有史以来面临的最大困难。
“现在到2050年全世界将增加20亿人，但怎么才能制造足够多的粮食来给他们呢？”
达伦·德鲁里是美国航天局(NASA)的一名科学家，他负责一项有关大豆的研究，NASA称大豆是全世界最重要的蛋白质作物。他说使用电脑的研究者吃惊地发现，他们能制造出一种既高产又需较少水分的大豆作物。
“我们发现，改变现代大豆品种结构能帮助我们改善许多目标。”
研究者无需使用更多水就能将大豆产量提高7%，电脑帮助研究者做需要在田地做很多年的工作，下一步是测试电脑的这项设计。
我们采访了史蒂芬·隆恩，他是伊利诺伊州立大学的教授，也是大豆研究报告的作者之一。他在Skype上告诉我们，研究者使用电脑程序来研究如何改变栽种方法会有什么结果。
“电脑模型预测的一个内容之一是叶子太多，所以我们去掉了多余的叶子，减少了叶子的面积。我们还根据模型的预测人为修改了叶子的角度。”
隆恩教授说，重要的是在预测的全球粮食危机发生之前找到解决办法，他说一旦开发出更高产的大豆，还需要20年的时间才能让农民进行种植。
这项有关大豆的研究发表在期刊《全球变化生物学》上，美国国家科学基金会、美国宇航局以及比尔和梅琳达·盖茨基金会为这项研究提供了资助。
这就是美国之音慢速英语农业报道，我是凯蒂·韦弗。
