VOA标准英语2010年-Zimbabwe Facing Another Drought

Farmers in Zimbabwe say they face another difficult agricultural season, as the dry spell that has hit the country continues.

Weeks into the agricultural season, the rains are nowhere near normal and the crops are showing it.  Zimbabwe Farmers Union Director Paul Zakariya tells VOA even crops that normally thrive under dry conditions are feeling the heat.

"We are looking at maize¹ [corn], we are looking at cotton and, in some instances, it's also the tobacco and the other small grains which naturally will be resisting or would be tolerant but they are already succumbing," he said.

The situation is worsened by the fact that even parts of the country that receive normal rainfall are also affected² by the prolonged dry spell.  Zakariya says, even if the country's normal rains started falling again, most of this season's crops are a write-off.

"Regions in the south … we could actually safely say they have lost their crop.  And, if we had rains today, we would be looking at a situation where we are salvaging³ 50 percent to 60 percent of the crop.  So it's quiet bad," he said.

Zakariya added that, although last year's harvest was better than the years before, the country would still have needed help, even if the rains had been normal this year.

"In terms of preparedness for the season, we were prepared but probably not adequately, because fertilizers in fact generally inputs⁴ were not readily available," he said.  "The situation would have been a lot better, but to say Zimbabwe would have had a good harvest that would satisfy the whole nation - that would be maybe stretching things a little bit."

Zimbabwe formerly⁵ was an exporter of food, but has depended on food aid and imports to meet its grain shortfalls, in the past decade.  This has been mostly because of unreliable rainfall  and the failure of government to support agriculture after the land reform program launched in 2000.  That exercise saw white farmers losing their farms for the resettlement landless blacks.

1 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。

2 affected   

adj.不自然的，假装的

参考例句：

• She showed an affected interest in our subject.她假装对我们的课题感到兴趣。
• His manners are affected.他的态度不自然。

3 salvaging   

（从火灾、海难等中）抢救（某物）( salvage的现在分词 )； 回收利用（某物）

参考例句：

• A shipping company has made a claim for the cost of salvaging a sunken ship. 某轮船公司要求赔赏打捞沉船的费用。（make a claim 要求）
• It is not uncommon to hear that a shipping company has made a claim for the cost of salvaging a sunken ship. 航运公司为打捞沉船的费用而提出要求，这并非奇闻。

4 inputs   

n.输入( input的名词复数 )；投入；输入端；输入的数据v.把…输入电脑( input的第三人称单数 )

参考例句：

• Uncheck the inputs checked for optimization in the previous stage. 不测试那些已经测试过的优化了的以前步骤的inputs.（变量参数）。 来自互联网
• Just in case, save in a file the inputs obtained at the previous stage. 以防万一，保存以前步骤获得的inputs（变量参数值）到一个文件中去。 来自互联网

5 formerly   

adv.从前，以前

参考例句：

• We now enjoy these comforts of which formerly we had only heard.我们现在享受到了过去只是听说过的那些舒适条件。
• This boat was formerly used on the rivers of China.这船从前航行在中国内河里。