美国国家公共电台 NPR What Will Persuade Rice Farmers In Punjab To Stop Setting Fires In Their Fields?

 

STEVE INSKEEP, HOST:

Northern India has some of the worst air quality in the world. This month, pollution in the capital, New Delhi, hit 20 times what the World Health Organization considers safe. Make a list of the world's 10 most polluted cities and nine of them will be in India. It's partly from car exhaust and from industry, and it's partly from the burning of crop residue¹ hundreds of miles away, which NPR's Lauren Frayer went to see.

LAUREN FRAYER, BYLINE²: This is really dry straw. It's what's left over from the rice harvest. And the fastest way to get rid of it is for the farmer to literally³ set it on fire. It's really hot, and it generates these huge clouds of smoke that are just blowing across the fields here. I've got to step back.

AMANDEEP SINGH: (Speaking Punjabi).

FRAYER: Amandeep Singh grew up breathing this smoke. He's from a long line of farmers here in India's breadbasket, Punjab, who've always burned their crops.

A. SINGH: (Through interpreter) It smells horrible, and it hurts our other crops because there isn't proper sunlight for them when the sky clouds over with the smoke.

FRAYER: So Amandeep broke with tradition this year. He bought a machine to mulch the rice rather than burning it. Amandeep says half of his farmer neighbors have done the same because of an outcry over pollution. But farmers dispute how much of it is from them rather than from traffic or industry.

MANJEET SINGH: Now farmers are too much aware that this is not good. This pollution is not good. But when cost is involved...

FRAYER: Manjeet Singh is a professor at Punjab Agricultural University. He sends grad students door to door to convince farmers to mulch rather than burn. It can be a tough sell, he says.

M. SINGH: They have to buy those machines, and then to operate those machines, the diesel⁴ is required or labor⁵ is required.

FRAYER: Starting this year, the government is reimbursing⁶ farmers for part of the cost of mulching machines. At an outdoor laboratory at IIT Delhi - the local equivalent of Stanford or MIT - some of India's best and brightest have come up with another alternative to crop burning.

PRACHEER DUTTA: So this is the rice straw that we’ve actually sourced. Six hundred KGs of that have been brought to us.

FRAYER: Inventor Pracheer Dutta convinced Punjabi farmers to rake up their rice straw and sell it to him rather than setting it on fire.

DUTTA: We put it through a machine. It's basically a big pressure cooker. And we just put in a solvent⁷.

FRAYER: They end up with fibers⁸ that can be used to make paper plates, fabric⁹ or bio fuel.

KULDEEP SINGH: (Speaking Punjabi).

FRAYER: Back up north in Punjab, another farmer, Kuldeep Singh, has begrudgingly¹⁰ stopped burning his rice straw.

K. SINGH: (Through interpreter) The local government banned crop burning here. That's why I stopped. I don't want to pay a fine. Otherwise, I would have kept doing it. Burning sterilizes¹¹ the soil. It kills pests.

FRAYER: He argues with environmental campaigners who tell him mulching is better. It leaves nutrients¹² in the soil. Campaigner Subhash Chandra Sharma says farmers don't like academics coming here and telling them what's best for their land.

SUBHASH CHANDRA SHARMA: There are few farmers. They are having a traditional thinking, and it becomes very difficult to change their mindset. It takes a long time, but this - I can say this is the beginning of a noble cause.

FRAYER: A noble cause, he says, to clear the smog that's choking people in India's capital hundreds of miles away. Lauren Frayer, NPR News, in rural Punjab, India.

(SOUNDBITE OF ANATOLE'S "COLOURS")

1 residue   

n.残余，剩余，残渣

参考例句：

• Mary scraped the residue of food from the plates before putting them under water.玛丽在把盘子放入水之前先刮去上面的食物残渣。
• Pesticide persistence beyond the critical period for control leads to residue problems.农药一旦超过控制的临界期，就会导致残留问题。

2 byline   

n.署名；v.署名

参考例句：

• His byline was absent as well.他的署名也不见了。
• We wish to thank the author of this article which carries no byline.我们要感谢这篇文章的那位没有署名的作者。

3 literally   

adv.照字面意义，逐字地；确实

参考例句：

• He translated the passage literally.他逐字逐句地翻译这段文字。
• Sometimes she would not sit down till she was literally faint.有时候，她不走到真正要昏厥了，决不肯坐下来。

4 diesel   

n.柴油发动机，内燃机

参考例句：

• We experimented with diesel engines to drive the pumps.我们试着用柴油机来带动水泵。
• My tractor operates on diesel oil.我的那台拖拉机用柴油开动。

5 labor   

n.劳动，努力，工作，劳工；分娩；vi.劳动，努力，苦干；vt.详细分析；麻烦

参考例句：

• We are never late in satisfying him for his labor.我们从不延误付给他劳动报酬。
• He was completely spent after two weeks of hard labor.艰苦劳动两周后，他已经疲惫不堪了。

6 reimbursing   

v.偿还，付还( reimburse的现在分词 )

参考例句：

• All banking charges outside Korea and reimbursing are for account of beneficiary. 所有韩国以外的用度及偿付行用度由受益人承担。 来自互联网
• A reimbursing bank's charges are for the account of the issuing bank. 然而，如果费用系由受益人承担，则开证行有责任在信用证和偿付授权书中予以注明。 来自互联网

7 solvent   

n.溶剂；adj.有偿付能力的

参考例句：

• Gasoline is a solvent liquid which removes grease spots.汽油是一种能去掉油污的有溶解力的液体。
• A bankrupt company is not solvent.一个破产的公司是没有偿还债务的能力的。

8 fibers   

光纤( fiber的名词复数 )； （织物的）质地； 纤维，纤维物质

参考例句：

• Thesolution of collagen-PVA was wet spined with the sodium sulfate as coagulant and collagen-PVA composite fibers were prepared. 在此基础上，以硫酸钠为凝固剂，对胶原-PVA共混溶液进行湿法纺丝，制备了胶原-PVA复合纤维。
• Sympathetic fibers are distributed to all regions of the heart. 交感神经纤维分布于心脏的所有部分。

9 fabric   

n.织物，织品，布；构造，结构，组织

参考例句：

• The fabric will spot easily.这种织品很容易玷污。
• I don't like the pattern on the fabric.我不喜欢那块布料上的图案。

10 begrudgingly   

小气地，吝啬地

参考例句：

• Then, begrudgingly, I clean up – which doesn't really take that much time. 于是，为了省钱，我打扫干净－－那也不需要花很多时间。
• His terrible directness made me feel peeved, and begrudgingly I conceded that he was right. 他的坦率让我恼火。我承认他是对的，但十分不甘心。

11 sterilizes   

n.消毒者，消毒器( sterilize的名词复数 )v.消毒( sterilize的第三人称单数 )；使无菌；使失去生育能力；使绝育

参考例句：

• An incompetent teacher sterilizes the young mind. 一个不称职的教员把青年人的思想弄得贫乏枯竭起来了。 来自辞典例句
• Deep UV Light inside the machine sterilizes micro-organisms that pass through. 深频紫外线清理经过设备内的微生物。 来自互联网

12 nutrients   

n.（食品或化学品）营养物，营养品( nutrient的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• a lack of essential nutrients 基本营养的缺乏
• Nutrients are absorbed into the bloodstream. 营养素被吸收进血液。 来自《简明英汉词典》