美国国家公共电台 NPR As Climate Changes, Taxpayers Will Shoulder Larger U.S. Payouts To Farmers

 

NOEL KING, HOST:

When a disaster hits U.S. farmers, like the floods this spring in the Midwest, taxpayers¹ end up paying part of the bill because of government-subsidized insurance. The U.S. Department of Agriculture now says as a result of climate change, the cost to taxpayers is likely to increase in the future.

NPR's Dan Charles has the story.

DAN CHARLES, BYLINE²: Robert Henry is giving me a tour of the land where he'd love to be planting soybeans right now, near New Madrid, Mo.

ROBERT HENRY: Smells kind of raunchy, don't it?

CHARLES: It's a swamp.

HENRY: Yeah.

CHARLES: Oh, my goodness. Look at this.

It's water as far as I can see, covering this flood plain between the Mississippi River and the levees - land where Henry normally grows crops.

HENRY: Thousands and thousands of acres, and some of the best land in the world.

CHARLES: But he won't grow anything here this year. He even has a tractor and harvesting equipment still stranded³ on an island out in the middle of all that water. But here's the good news - he'll get a check from his crop insurance - not as much money as he'd have gotten from a soybean crop, but enough to help him get by.

HENRY: Which is better than going under, you know?

CHARLES: Most grain farmers buy crop insurance. It's a good deal for them. The federal government pays most of the cost of the premiums⁴. In fact, the federal government spends, on average, about $8 billion a year on crop insurance for farmers.

It could be a lot more this year. USDA officials expect to pay up to a billion dollars to farmers like Henry who couldn't plant their crops. Farmers who planted crops but get poor harvests will send their claims in later. Robert Henry is hoping that this year's flooding won't turn out to be a taste of the future.

HENRY: It may be global warming, but I don't think so. I think we're in a cycle of wet. And we'll cycle out of it, and we'll be dry again.

CHARLES: There are billions of dollars riding on whether he's right. The scientists, of course, say the climate is changing. And a team of researchers at the U.S. Department of Agriculture just tried to figure out how it might affect these crop insurance payments.

Economist⁵ Andrew Crane-Droesch led the project.

ANDREW CRANE-DROESCH: We used five climate models, some of which are more optimistic and some of which are more pessimistic in terms of warming and precipitation change.

CHARLES: In general, these models show a future, 40 or 80 years from now, in which farmers harvest smaller amounts of the country's biggest crops - corn and soybeans.

CRANE-DROESCH: Reductions in yield almost across the entire country.

CHARLES: That sounds bad, and it probably is for anybody who needs corn and soybeans. But for farmers, the picture is different because that smaller harvest sells for a higher price.

CRANE-DROESCH: To the degree that climate change lowers production, it will increase the value because of basic supply and demand.

CHARLES: And the government has to pay bigger subsidies⁶ for crop insurance premiums. It's insuring something that's more valuable. Also, the models show more volatility⁷, more booms and busts⁸ - so more farmer claims, more government payouts for bad harvests.

Now, Crane-Droesch is quick to point out this is not really a prediction. The models don't include all kinds of other things, like how much of the corn and soybean crop gets exported.

CRANE-DROESCH: So there's just a lot of stuff that we can't capture. And that's why this work is only the beginning. There's a lot more to do on top of this.

CHARLES: His study is attracting attention, though, partly because the work may not continue - at least not right away or within the USDA. The USDA's Economic Research Service, which carried out this study, is getting relocated from Washington, D.C., to Kansas City. Secretary of Agriculture Sonny Perdue says it'll save money and bring USDA operations closer to farmers.

Critics say it's an attack on independent research, carried out in such a rush that it's forcing employees to quit rather than uproot⁹ their lives. Most of the authors of this report on climate change and crop insurance either have left the agency already or are planning to.

Dan Charles, NPR News.

(SOUNDBITE OF DIRTWIRE'S "VIBEZ")

1 taxpayers   

纳税人，纳税的机构( taxpayer的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• Finance for education comes from taxpayers. 教育经费来自纳税人。
• She was declaiming against the waste of the taxpayers' money. 她慷慨陈词猛烈抨击对纳税人金钱的浪费。

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 stranded   

a.搁浅的，进退两难的

参考例句：

• He was stranded in a strange city without money. 他流落在一个陌生的城市里， 身无分文，一筹莫展。
• I was stranded in the strange town without money or friends. 我困在那陌生的城市，既没有钱，又没有朋友。

4 premiums   

n.费用( premium的名词复数 )；保险费；额外费用；（商品定价、贷款利息等以外的）加价

参考例句：

• He paid premiums on his life insurance last year. 他去年付了人寿保险费。 来自《现代英汉综合大词典》
• Moves are afoot to increase car insurance premiums. 现正在酝酿提高汽车的保险费。 来自《简明英汉词典》

5 economist   

n.经济学家，经济专家，节俭的人

参考例句：

• He cast a professional economist's eyes on the problem.他以经济学行家的眼光审视这个问题。
• He's an economist who thinks he knows all the answers.他是个经济学家，自以为什么都懂。

6 subsidies   

n.补贴，津贴，补助金( subsidy的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• European agriculture ministers failed to break the deadlock over farm subsidies. 欧洲各国农业部长在农业补贴问题上未能打破僵局。
• Agricultural subsidies absorb about half the EU's income. 农业补贴占去了欧盟收入的大约一半。 来自《简明英汉词典》

7 volatility   

n.挥发性，挥发度，轻快，（性格）反复无常

参考例句：

• That was one reason why volatility was so low last year.这也是去年波动性如此低的原因之一。
• Yet because volatility remained low for so long,disaster myopia prevailed.然而，由于相当长的时间里波动性小，灾难短视就获胜了。

8 busts   

半身雕塑像( bust的名词复数 )； 妇女的胸部； 胸围； 突击搜捕

参考例句：

• Dey bags swells up and busts. 那奶袋快胀破了。
• Marble busts all looked like a cemetery. 大理石的半身象，简直就象是坟山。

9 uproot   

v.连根拔起，拔除；根除，灭绝；赶出家园，被迫移开

参考例句：

• The family decided to uproot themselves and emigrate to Australia.他们全家决定离开故土，移居澳大利亚。
• The trunk of an elephant is powerful enough to uproot trees.大象的长鼻强壮得足以将树木连根拔起。