VOA标准英语2009年-GM Crops Dominate US Farms, but Organic In

By Steve Baragona
Washington
29 October 2009

 
Garden pest
As farmers across the United States are bringing in the harvest, silos are filling up with record or near-record quantities of corn and soybeans. To an extent not seen anywhere else in the world, U.S. farmers have embraced varieties that are genetically¹ modified -- GM for short. But that doesn't tell the whole story. There's another movement shifting a small portion U.S. farming away from GM crops and toward organic agriculture. With experts calling for a variety of approaches to deal with the growing demand for food,

Meet the corn earworm. Keeping the earworm and its cousin, the European corn borer, out of crops is one of the main reasons Champlain, Virginia, farmer Jay Hundley plants genetically modified corn.

"We've seen an advantage on that," Hundley says, "the European corn borer, they can be a problem. It pretty much tends to them 100 percent. Corn earworm, it does have an affect on them, and you don't see anywhere near as many in the cornfields."

 
Jay Hundley
Hundley also grows GM soybeans. They are designed to make killing² weeds easier because these soybeans will survive treatment with an herbicide called Roundup.

Roundup kills nearly all of the weeds farmers commonly deal with. Hundley says the herbicide-tolerant soybeans give him more flexibility³ when he sprays his fields -- and he likes that convenience.

"It's time savings⁴, stuff like that. We don't have to be there today. We can wait until tomorrow," Hundley said.

The GM seeds cost more. And his contract with the seed company doesn't let him save them to plant the next year. But, he says, the benefits outweigh⁵ the costs.

Farmers across the United States have come to the same conclusion. This year, 85 percent of the corn and 91 percent of the soybeans grown in the U.S. are genetically modified. No other country grows nearly as much.
 
While the vast majority of corn, soybeans and cotton in the United States are genetically modified, a small but growing group of farmers are going in a different direction.

 
Nick Maravell
About 200 kilometers north, in Adamstown, Maryland, Nick Maravell is also farming corn and soybeans. But Maravell does not raise genetically modified crops. "What we're trying to do is encourage things that would happen naturally," Maravell said.

Maravell is one of an increasing number of organic farmers -- those who don't use chemical fertilizers, insecticides or weed killers⁶. Organic cropland makes up a tiny fraction of the total acreage in the United States -- just one half of one percent in 2005, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture. But that figure represents a doubling of total organic acreage since 1997.

Part of the reason Maravell doesn't grow GM crops is because he is concerned about unintended consequences.

"With genetically modified organisms, they have been released into the environment. They can take on a life of their own. That is, they can reproduce and spread and cross-breed with other species," Maravell says, "and i don't feel that we have really quite mastered what we're doing with these yet."

The GM crops have received a green light from regulators in the U.S. Much of Europe remains⁷ opposed, but the scientific body advising Europe's food safety regulators recently said current varieities are unlikely to harm health or the environment.

But Maravell says another reason he doesn't grow GM crops is because he doesn't need them to get good yields.

"As an organic farm, we present an alternative," Maravell says, "and as you can see, we produce crops here. We're not overrun with insects, disease, or weeds. We can do it without the genetically modified [crops]."

In a good year, Maravell admits he doesn't produce as much as his neighbors who use chemical fertilizers and GM crops. But in a dry year he says he out-produces them.

And Maravell's organic products fetch a premium⁸ price, which helps his bottom line.

With the need to protect the environment and feed the planet both growing steadily⁹, many experts predict farmers will call on both genetically modified and organic agriculture to meet the demands.

1 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

2 killing   

n.巨额利润；突然赚大钱，发大财

参考例句：

• Investors are set to make a killing from the sell-off.投资者准备清仓以便大赚一笔。
• Last week my brother made a killing on Wall Street.上个周我兄弟在华尔街赚了一大笔。

3 flexibility   

n.柔韧性，弹性，（光的）折射性，灵活性

参考例句：

• Her great strength lies in her flexibility.她的优势在于她灵活变通。
• The flexibility of a man's muscles will lessen as he becomes old.人老了肌肉的柔韧性将降低。

4 savings   

n.存款，储蓄

参考例句：

• I can't afford the vacation,for it would eat up my savings.我度不起假，那样会把我的积蓄用光的。
• By this time he had used up all his savings.到这时，他的存款已全部用完。

5 outweigh   

vt.比...更重，...更重要

参考例句：

• The merits of your plan outweigh the defects.你制定的计划其优点胜过缺点。
• One's merits outweigh one's short-comings.功大于过。

6 killers   

凶手( killer的名词复数 )； 消灭…者； 致命物； 极难的事

参考例句：

• He remained steadfast in his determination to bring the killers to justice. 他要将杀人凶手绳之以法的决心一直没有动摇。
• They were professional killers who did in John. 杀死约翰的这些人是职业杀手。

7 remains   

n.剩余物，残留物；遗体，遗迹

参考例句：

• He ate the remains of food hungrily.他狼吞虎咽地吃剩余的食物。
• The remains of the meal were fed to the dog.残羹剩饭喂狗了。

8 premium   

n.加付款；赠品；adj.高级的；售价高的

参考例句：

• You have to pay a premium for express delivery.寄快递你得付额外费用。
• Fresh water was at a premium after the reservoir was contaminated.在水库被污染之后，清水便因稀而贵了。

9 steadily   

adv.稳定地；不变地；持续地

参考例句：

• The scope of man's use of natural resources will steadily grow.人类利用自然资源的广度将日益扩大。
• Our educational reform was steadily led onto the correct path.我们的教学改革慢慢上轨道了。