VOA慢速英语20060502b

AGRICULTURE REPORT - Going Biotech on the Farm: Second of Two PartsBy Mario Ritter

Broadcast: Tuesday, May 02, 2006

I'm Steve Ember with the VOA Special English Agriculture Report.

Farmers from a number of countries were in Chicago recently for a convention¹ of the Biotechnology Industry Organization. The Council for Biotechnology Information offered some of them to the media to discuss the need for new agricultural technologies.




Last week we talked about a farmer from Spain who grows Bt maize². Today we talk about two American farmers.

Al Skogen farms about one thousand six hundred hectares near Valley City, North Dakota. He, too, grows Bt maize. The corn is engineered with a gene³ from a bacterium⁴ poisonous to some insects.

Mister Skogen also grows Roundup Ready soybeans. The Monsanto company genetically⁵ engineered this plant to resist glyphosate [gly-FOSS-ate], an herbicide it sells under the name Roundup. The poison kills unwanted plants, but it can also kill crop plants.

Other seed producers make similar herbicide-resistant⁶ soybeans.

Mister Skogen says he can now spray one herbicide on his crop two times a year, instead of different herbicides three times. He says he avoids having to till herbicide into the soil before planting.

Mark Williams in West Texas grows more than one thousand hectares of cotton and almost five hundred hectares of corn. He uses strip tilling, a way to reduce the loss of topsoil. Global positioning technology helps place seed along a series of narrow lines plowed⁷ into the soil.

Mister Williams grows Bt corn, but he plants about half of his fields with non-Bt corn. This area is meant as a refuge⁸ for insects. The aim is to keep them from becoming resistant to the poison made by the biotech plants.

Mister Williams has grown both Bt cotton and Roundup Ready cotton. He says the Bt cotton usually does not need insecticide. And the herbicide-resistant cotton saves on time and labor⁹. There is no need to remove weeds by hand during part of the growing season.

With traditional crops, he says, farmers spend less money at planting time and more on pest control later. He says the biotech seed costs about two times as much as some non-biotech kinds, but it requires fewer chemicals.

Both farmers say one of their biggest goals is to reduce the amount of chemicals they put into the environment. They say they understand that some people do not trust biotech crops. But they point out that the government says these crops are safe.

This VOA Special English Agriculture Report was written by Mario Ritter. Read and listen to our reports at www.unsv.com. I'm Steve Ember.

1 convention   

n.惯例，习俗，常规，会议，大会

参考例句：

• How many delegates have checked in at the convention?大会已有多少代表报到？
• He sets at naught every convention of society.他轻视所有的社会习俗。

2 maize   

n.玉米

参考例句：

• There's a field planted with maize behind the house.房子后面有一块玉米地。
• We can grow sorghum or maize on this plot.这块地可以种高粱或玉米。

3 gene   

n.遗传因子，基因

参考例句：

• A single gene may have many effects.单一基因可能具有很多种效应。
• The targeting of gene therapy has been paid close attention.其中基因治疗的靶向性是值得密切关注的问题之一。

4 bacterium   

n.(pl.)bacteria 细菌

参考例句：

• The bacterium possibly goes in the human body by the mouth.细菌可能通过口进入人体。
• A bacterium is identified as the cause for his duodenal ulcer.一种细菌被断定为造成他十二指肠溃疡的根源。

5 genetically   

adv.遗传上

参考例句：

• All the bees in the colony are genetically related. 同一群体的蜜蜂都有亲缘关系。
• Genetically modified foods have already arrived on American dinner tables. 经基因改造加工过的食物已端上了美国人的餐桌。 来自英汉非文学 - 生命科学 - 基因与食物

6 resistant   

adj.(to)抵抗的，有抵抗力的

参考例句：

• Many pests are resistant to the insecticide.许多害虫对这种杀虫剂有抵抗力。
• They imposed their government by force on the resistant population.他们以武力把自己的统治强加在持反抗态度的人民头上。

7 plowed   

v.耕( plow的过去式和过去分词 )；犁耕；费力穿过

参考例句：

• They plowed nearly 100,000 acres of virgin moorland. 他们犁了将近10万英亩未开垦的高沼地。 来自辞典例句
• He plowed the land and then sowed the seeds. 他先翻土，然后播种。 来自辞典例句

8 refuge   

n.避难（处），庇护（所）；v.庇护，避难（所）

参考例句：

• They took refuge in a cave yesterday.他们昨天是在一个洞里避难的。
• We took refuge in the lee of the wall.我们在墙的背风处暂避。

9 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。