(单词翻译:单击)
听力文本
This is the Agriculture Report.
The future has arrived at a dairy farm about in an hour by car from Washington D.C. A robot is milking cows. It is milking time at Woodbourne Creamery in Mt. Airy, Maryland. The cows are standing in line for a turn at the robot.
John Fendrick is the owner of the farm. He inspects the progress of the animals by looking at a computer screen. That is all he has to do.
"The door of the milk opens up, they walk in, they get milked. The door opens up, they walk out."
John Fendrick checks the progress on the screen.
The robot does all the work. It uses a laser to find each teat -- the place on the cow where the milk comes out. The robot then cleans the teat and connects a milking tube to it.
The robot also tests the milk for possible contamination. If it finds a problem, it rejects the milk. When the amount of milk coming out of the cow slows, the machine knows to stop, and sends the cow on its way.
Milking robots are becoming popular among dairy farmers in the United States, Europe and Australia. John Fendrick says the robots have changed life on a dairy farm.
"You are giving the freedom back. So it allows me or the people work for me to actually do other things on the farm."
Most dairy farmers must milk their cows two times a day, early in the morning and late at night. The animals are milked everyday in good weather or bad. But Mr Fendrick's cows do not follow such schedule, they stay in the field until they want to be milked by the robot. Some of them come to be milked in the middle of the night.
Mr Fendrick doesn't even need to be there to watch his cows be milked. He can watch from his telephone. He can learn when each cow was milked and how much she produced. He can also learn if a cow has not been milked for a long time.
The cow milking robot is not low cost technology. Mr Fendrick paid more than $150,000 for it. But he notes, paying someone to milk the cows is also costly.
"In three years, I will have paid off the difference with this, and I don't have to be the person who's always on call to milk. The fact that we have a life, and our cows are able to function without us -- to us, it's well worth the money."
And he says that is a good thing. "I don't like to milk." With the robot, he can turn his attention to other things. He gets about 475 liters of milk a day, and he never has to touch a cow.
And that's the Agriculture Report from VOA Learning English. For more agriculture stories, go to our website learningenglish.voanews.com.
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.contamination n. 污染，玷污；污染物
By bathing in unclean water, they expose themselves to contamination.
在不干净的水中洗澡，他们可能会受到感染。
2.dairy n. 奶制品；乳牛；制酪场；乳品店；牛奶及乳品业 adj. 乳品的；牛奶的；牛奶制的；产乳的
The feeding of dairy cows has undergone a revolution.
乳牛的喂养方法发生了巨大的改变。
3.schedule vt. 安排，计划；编制目录；将……列入计划表 n. 时间表；计划表；一览表
Put this item on our daily work schedule.
把这项工作提到议事日程上来。
内容解析
1.In three years, I will have paid off the difference with this, and I don't have to be the person who's always on call to milk.
pay off 付清；取得成功；贿赂；报复
He paid off the debt of his friend with the money raised by his writings.
他用稿费的收入偿清了朋友的债务。
It has been rather costly to install the machinery, but it should pay off in the long run.
安装这套机械代价很高，但从长远来看它会赚钱的。
参考译文
这里是美国之音慢速英语农业报道。
在距离华盛顿特区一小时车程的奶牛场，未来已经到来。一个机器人在为奶牛挤牛奶，这里是马里兰州芒特艾里市Woodbourne乳品厂的挤奶时间，奶牛们排成一排等待机器人。
约翰·芬德里克是这家农场的主人，他通过电脑屏幕观看动物们的进展情况，他要做的也就是这些。
“挤奶门一打开，它们就走进来，挤完奶后门再打开，它们再走出去。”
机器人做全部工作，它使用激光寻找乳头，也就是牛身上出奶的地方，机器人然后清洁乳头，然后用挤奶的管子连接在奶头上。
机器人还化验牛奶可能的污染，一旦发现问题，就会放弃这些牛奶，当牛奶流出的量变小时，机器人知道停下来，然后把奶牛送走。
挤奶机器人在美国、欧洲和澳大利亚奶场越发流行，约翰·芬德里克说这些机器人改变了奶场的生活。
“这样就自由了，我们可以做农场的其他工作。”
大部分奶场必须每天挤奶两次，一次是凌晨，一次是晚上。无论天气好坏都要挤奶，但芬德里克的奶牛不遵守这样的习惯，它们呆在地里，等着机器人挤奶。有的奶牛必须在半夜挤奶。
芬德里克甚至无需观看奶牛挤奶的过程，他能从手机上看，能知道每头牛何时挤奶，以及挤奶量多少，还能知道一头牛是否很久没有挤奶了。
这台挤奶机器人耗资不低，芬德里克花了15多万美元，但他说，花钱雇人来挤奶也很贵。
“三年之内我就能付清差价，不用随时准备去挤奶，我们就有了自己的生活，没有我们，奶牛也能照常挤奶，这些钱花了很值。”
他说这是件好事，“我不喜欢挤奶。”有了这台机器人，他就可以去做其他事，他每天能得到475升牛奶，但他根本不去碰一头奶牛。
这就是美国之音慢速英语农业报道，登陆learningenglish.voanews.com获得更多农业报道。
我是凯蒂·韦弗。
