VOA慢速英語:為滿足全球糧食需求科學(xué)家們尋找超級大豆

美國之音英語教學(xué)，現(xiàn)在是農(nóng)業(yè)報道。

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.

聯(lián)合國表示到2050年，世界人口將增加34%?？茖W(xué)家們和其他人都明白這將很難滿足那么多人的糧食需求。最近的一項研究表明大豆和電腦可能會幫忙解決這個問題。

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.

聯(lián)合國預(yù)計糧食產(chǎn)量必須提高70%以滿足更多人口的需求。聯(lián)合國預(yù)計越來越多人將生活在城市而不是農(nóng)村地區(qū)。但目前主要作物生產(chǎn)力的增長太低。

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.

Kenneth Quinn是世界糧食基金會會長。他表示提高糧食產(chǎn)量是人類有史以來面臨的最大挑戰(zhàn)。

"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.

Quinn提出疑問“從現(xiàn)在到2050年人口將增加20億，我們怎么為他們生產(chǎn)足夠的食物?”

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.

Darren Drewry是美國宇航局的一位科學(xué)家。他領(lǐng)導(dǎo)了一項大豆研究，美國宇航局稱大豆是世界上最重要的蛋白質(zhì)作物。他說，使用電腦的研究人員驚奇地發(fā)現(xiàn)，他們能夠開發(fā)一種生產(chǎn)率更高，更節(jié)水的大豆作物。

"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.

Drewry說“我們發(fā)現(xiàn)現(xiàn)代大豆的結(jié)構(gòu)可以做很多改變，以幫助我們?yōu)閷崿F(xiàn)目標(biāo)提高很多可能性”。

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.

研究人員能夠在無需更多水的前提下，將大豆生產(chǎn)率提高7%。計算機幫助研究人員完成了很多在地里需要很多年才能完成的工作。下一步的工作是檢測這項計算機設(shè)計。

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.

關(guān)于這個問題我們與Stephen Long進行了探討。他是伊利諾伊大學(xué)的一位教授，也是這項大豆研究報告的作者之一。他通過Skype告訴我們，研究人員通過電腦程序研究如果改變植物生長結(jié)構(gòu)的話，會發(fā)生什么。

"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.

Long說“電腦模型的預(yù)測之一是葉子太多，因此我們在作物生長時去除了一些葉子以減少葉子面積。我們還根據(jù)電腦模型的預(yù)測，人為地改變了葉子的角度。”

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.

Long 教授表示必須在全球糧食短缺的預(yù)言實現(xiàn)之前找到解決辦法。另外一旦他們開發(fā)出來，農(nóng)民開始種植這種更具產(chǎn)量的大豆仍需20年時間。

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.

對大豆的研究發(fā)表在《全球變化生物學(xué)》雜志上。美國國家科學(xué)基金會,美國宇航局和比爾和梅林達•蓋茨基金會資助了該項研究。