Agriculture Report - The Appeal of Urban Farming
农业报道 - 生态城市农场的魅力
This is the VOA Special English Agriculture Report.
这里是美国之音慢速英语农业报道。
Old properties and empty lots in cities and towns around the United States are finding new life as urban farms.
美国各地的旧物业和空地作为市区农场找到了新生。
Eco City Farms in Edmonston, Maryland, is located near shopping centers, car repair shops and homes. The neighborhood is a working-class community. People do not have very much money, and they have limited access to fresh food in markets.
马里兰州埃德蒙斯顿市生态城市农场邻近商场、汽车修理店和住宅。该地区是一个工薪阶层社区。人们不是特别富有，在市场上获得新鲜蔬菜的途径有限。
Over the past two years, the farm has attracted volunteers from the community like Marcy Clark. She schools her four children at home. On a recent day she brought them to Eco City Farms for a lesson.
在过去两年中，这家农场吸引了社区中像马西·克拉克（Marcy Clark）一类的志愿者。她在家教育自己的四个孩子。最近一天她把他们带到了生态城市农场上了一课。
MARCY CLARK: “It’s important that the children understand the connection between the food that they eat, the soil, the air, the pollution, how all this is connected to their well-being.”
Her children harvested rows of spinach, mustard greens, lettuce, Swiss chard and carrots. What did Hannah, Caleb, John and Alston think of the experience?
她的孩子收获了一排排菠菜、芥菜、生菜、瑞士甜菜和胡萝卜。汉娜，迦勒，约翰和阿尔斯通对这次经历有什么看法呢？
HANNAH CLARK: “You know, it’s good for the earth and it’s good for us.”
汉娜·克拉克：“你知道，它对地球和我们都有益。”
CALEB CLARK: “It may not be like fun, fun, but it’s fun, ’cause you’re learning and not, like, writing something out on a piece of paper.”
迦勒·克拉克：“它可能不像是很有趣，但它很有趣，因为你是在学习，而不是在纸上写什么东西之类的。”
JOHN CLARK: “Basically instead of feeling down when I have to eat vegetables, I feel happy.
约翰·克拉克：“基本上除了必须吃蔬菜时我情绪低落，其它时间我都感觉很快乐。”
ALSTON CLARK: “I like coming out here. You know, you connect with the earth, where your food comes from. You appreciate the food a little bit more.”
阿尔斯通·克拉克：“我喜欢来这里。你知道，你与地球互相关联，食物就来自地球。你更喜欢这些食物。”
Margaret Morgan-Hubbard started Eco City Farms. She thinks of it as a place where people can learn to live healthier lives.
玛格丽特·摩根-哈伯德（Margaret Morgan-Hubbard）开办了生态城市农场。她把这里当作一个可以人们可以学会更健康生活的地方。
MARGARET MORGAN-HUBBARD: “Our view is that what happens in a community, influences the culture of that community. So our idea was growing food in a community and showing that you can have farms even in urban areas, redefines what’s possible in that area, in that community and brings people together.”
摩根-哈伯德：“我们的观点是，社区中所发生的会影响到该社区的文化。所以我们的想法就是在社区中种植食物，向人们表明，即使是在城市地区也可以有农场，重新定义该地区、该社区的可能性，将人们联系到一起。”
“Every piece of what we do here is a demonstration to show people everything about how to have a sustainable community," she says. That means not only farming food and raising chickens and bees, but improving the soil with compost made from food waste. Sixteen wooden bins are filled with worms. Their job is to eat the food waste and help make it into compost.
“我们在这里做的每件事都是一个示范，向人们表明如何拥有一个可持续发展的社区，”她说道。这不仅仅意味着耕种粮食和饲养鸡和蜜蜂，还意味着通过食物残渣制作堆肥改善土质。16个大木箱装满了蠕虫，它们的职责就是吃下食物残渣，并将其转化为堆肥。”
Benny Erez is a technical adviser at EcoCity Farms.
班尼·埃雷兹（Benny Erez）是生态城市农场的技术顾问。
BENNY EREZ: “When people come and look at this, obviously we show them a technique, a technique how to take food waste and close the circle and bring the food back from being food to composted and then use it on the farm, back to growing vegetables and back to people, and it’s basically closing the loop.”
埃雷兹：“当人们来到这里看到这个，很显然我们向他们展示了一种技术，一种获得食物残渣，并把食物残渣从食物转为堆肥，然后将他们用到农场中种植蔬菜，并变成蔬菜再次回到人们手里。这基本是一种封闭的循环。”
Eco City Farms is an "off the grid" experimental operation. The farm gets its power not from the local electricity grid but from the sun with solar panels. In winter, the greenhouses are heated using a geothermal system. Buried tubes pump air at underground temperature -- thirteen degrees Celsius -- into the structures.
生态城市农场是一种“脱离电网”的试验性操作。农场不是从本地电网，而是通过太阳能电池板从阳光中获得电力。在冬季，大棚使用地热系统加热。埋在地下的管道将地下温度为13摄氏度的空气注入到大棚中。
Vegetables can be grown all year. So once a week, all winter long, neighbors like Chris Moss and her three children bicycle to the farm to pick up a share of the harvest. What does five-year-old Owen Moss think of it?
该农场全年都可以种植蔬菜。所以在漫长冬季里，每周像克里斯·莫斯（Chris Moss）和她三个孩子这样的邻居就会骑车到农场拿一份农场的收获物。5岁的欧文·莫斯（Owen Moss）对此怎么认为的呢？
OWEN MOSS: “I like eating the vegetables.”
欧文·莫斯：“我喜欢吃蔬菜。”
And that's the VOA Special English Agriculture Report. You can find two videos about EcoCity Farms -- including one about the composting worms -- at voanews.cn. I'm Jim Tedder.
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Contributing: Rosanne Skirble |