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Is it because the warning bells ring so loudly that no one seemsto hear them? What with elections and the euro crisis, there areplenty of distractions.
是不是因为警钟太响，反而没有人能够听到？人们被各种选举和欧元危机分散了太多的精力。
But there will be 200,000 more mouths to feed around the world tomorrow – literally. To meetdemand, we will need to produce the same amount of food in the next 40 years as we did in thepast 8,000. But global wheat production is expected to fall more than 5 per cent this year, theUN’s Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) says.
平均来看，世界每天增加20万人口需要养活。为了满足这个需求，未来40年我们需要生产与过去8000年等量的粮食。但联合国粮农组织(FAO)表示，今年全球小麦产量预计将下降5%。
The challenges of food security – of providing a lot more, with a lot less – are complex, immense, frightening and urgent. They are urgent because our task is not only planning for 2050, when wewill need to feed an extra 2bn people. We also have to act for today, when 870m people will go tosleep hungry.
在更少的土地上生产更多的粮食，这一粮食安全面临的挑战非常复杂、严重、可怕而又紧急。之所以说它是一个紧急的问题，是因为我们不仅要为2050年规划（届时全球将会增加20亿张嘴巴），同时还需要今天就行动，因为现在就有8.7亿人吃不饱。
There has been a 20 per cent drop in wheat yields in the US this year. The EU harvest is down by 6m tonnes – in Russia and Ukraine it will be reduced by more than 35m. The FAO predicts globalwheat supply in 2012-13 will fall to 661m tons. Consumption stands at 688m tons.
美国今年小麦产量下降了20%，欧盟收成也减少了600万吨，俄罗斯和乌克兰的产量下降将超过3500万吨。联合国粮农组织预计，2012-13年，全球小麦供应将下降到6.61亿吨，但消费需求却维持在6.88亿吨。
Pressure on the world’s resources is intensifying. Increased competition for these resources hasbeen compounded by the effects of severe weather conditions. Since 2000, food prices havemore than doubled because of soaring demand, with desertification, floods and drought addingsignificant volatility to the trend of food price inflation. To make matters worse, it is countries withalready high rates of malnutrition that tend to be worst hit. People in Chad, Ethiopia and Angolaspend up to 60 per cent of their weekly budget on food – much of it imported. The mostvulnerable are hit the hardest by price rises.
世界资源压力在不断增加。恶劣的天气情况使得针对这些资源的竞争更加复杂化。2000年以来，由于需求迅猛增加，粮食价格翻了一倍以上。荒漠化、洪水、干旱使得粮食价格趋势更加不稳定。更糟糕的是，营养不良比率已经非常高的国家可能会受到最大的冲击。乍得、埃塞俄比亚、安哥拉每周有60%的预算用于粮食，并且大部分粮食都是进口的。最脆弱的国家受到价格增长的冲击最大。
How do we address this? There probably is no perfect answer but I passionately believe there aresome very clear actions we should all be taking. The following three, drawn from my experience asthe chairman of the B20 Taskforce on Food Security, which provided recommendations for the G20 in Mexico this year, should sit at the top of our collective to-do list.
我们应该如何解决这个问题呢？或许并没有十全十美的答案，但我坚信确实有一些明确的措施需要我们去落实。以下三点就是从我担任“商业20国集团会议”(B20)粮食安全专责小组主席的经历中总结出来的，该小组为今年在墨西哥举办的20国集团(G20)峰会提出了一些建议。这三点应该是我们集体行动列表中的重中之重。
First, we should eliminate the use of unsustainable biofuels. Most first generation biofuels are neitherenvironmentally efficient nor cost effective ways to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, and thedemand they place on land is destabilising world food supply and increasing prices. I wasencouraged to hear the European Commission say in October that it plans to limit land conversionfor biofuels, but it is a small step.
首先，我们应该停止使用不可持续的生物燃料。从降低温室气体排放的角度看，大部分第一代生物燃料的环境效率和成本效率都很低，并且它们对土地的需求让世界粮食供应不稳定，也推高了粮食价格。10月份欧盟委员会(European Commission)表示，将限制生物燃料的土地使用，我感到很欣慰，但这只是一小步。
Second, we need increased investment in those parts of Africa and Latin America where the lastremaining serious agricultural expansion potential lies, or wherever current yields are threatened. Governments and businesses need to direct investment towards strengthening whole value chainsand improving support for smallholder farmers, particularly women. In the developing world, theymake up 43 per cent of farmers – rising to 50 per cent in eastern Asia and 80 per cent in sub-Saharan Africa – but they have less access to the land, water rights, finance and education thatcould increase productivity. Aiding smallholder farmers is one of the most efficient ways ofalleviating poverty, which makes it even more critical.
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发表于 2016-7-11 09:55:49