纽约时报 令人爱恨交加的转基因作物(1)（在线收听）

    Since their introduction in the mid-1990s, G.M.O.s have remained wildly unpopular with consumers,自上世纪90年代中期推出以来，转基因生物在消费者中一直不受欢迎，who see them as dubious tools of Big Ag, with potentially sinister impacts on both people and the environment.

    他们认为转基因生物是大型农业公司的可疑工具，对人类和环境都有潜在的有害影响。

    In the three decades since G.M.O. crops were introduced, only a tiny number have been developed and approved for sale,自转基因作物问世以来的30年里，只有少数作物得到开发并获准销售，almost all of them products made by large agrochemical companies like Monsanto.

    几乎所有这些产品都由孟山都等大型农用化学品公司生产。

    Within those categories, though, G.M.O.s have taken over much of the market.

    然而，在这些类别中，转基因生物占据了大部分市场。

    Roughly 94 percent of soybeans grown in the United States are genetically modified, as is more than 90 percent of all corn, canola and sugar beets,美国种植的大豆约94%是转基因作物，玉米、油菜籽和甜菜也有90%以上是转基因品种，together covering roughly 170 million acres of cropland.

    总共覆盖约1.7亿英亩的农田。

    At the same time, resistance to G.M.O. foods has only become more entrenched.

    与此同时，对转基因食品的抵制只会变得更加根深蒂固。

    The market for products certified to be non-G.M.O. has increased more than 70-fold since 2010, from roughly $350 million that year to $26 billion by 2018.

    自2010年以来，被认证为非转基因产品的市场增长了70倍以上，从当年的约3.5亿美元增加到2018年的260亿美元。

    There are now more than 55,000 products carrying the "Non-G.M.O. Project Verified" label on their packaging.

    目前有超过5.5万种产品的包装上贴有“非转基因项目认证”标签。

    Nearly half of all U.S. shoppers say that they try not to buy G.M.O. foods,将近一半的美国购物者表示，他们尽量不买转基因食品，while a study by Jennifer Kuzma, a biochemist who is a director of the Genetic Engineering and Society Center at North Carolina State University,而生物化学家、北卡罗来纳州立大学基因工程与社会中心主任詹妮弗·库兹马的一项研究发现，found that consumers will pay up to 20 percent more to avoid them.

    消费者会多付20%的费用来避免转基因食品。

    Our distrust might also stem from the way G.M.O.s were introduced.

    我们的不信任也可能源于转基因生物的引入方式。

    When the agribusiness giant Monsanto released its first G.M.O. crop in 1996 — an herbicide-resistant soybean — the company was in need of cash.

    1996年，农业综合企业巨头孟山都推出了第一种转基因作物——一种抗除草剂的大豆，当时该公司急需资金。

    By adding a gene from a bacterium, it hoped to create crops that were resistant to glyphosate, the active ingredient in its trademark herbicide, RoundUp,通过添加来自细菌的基因，该公司希望创造出抗草甘膦的作物，草甘膦是其除草剂商标“农达”的活性成分，enabling farmers to spray weeds liberally without also killing the soy plant itself — something that wasn't possible with traditional herbicides.

    使农民能够在不杀死大豆植株本身的情况下自由喷洒杂草，这是传统除草剂无法做到的。

    Commercially, the idea succeeded.

    从商业角度来看，这个想法成功了。