世界粮食危机？

There's a common warning about our planet's future: the risk of food shortages.

关于我们的星球的未来，有一个我们共同面对的警告:食物短缺的风险。

"We've got a growing world and a hungry world. We need to make sure we do our part in helping feed that hungry world," said Kip Tom, a farmer from Indiana who's currently the U.S. ambassador to the UN's Food and Agriculture Organization, as he closed a panel discussion in 2018.

“我们的世界在不断发展同时也面临饥饿。”来自印第安纳州的农场主、现任美国驻联合国粮农组织大使基普·汤姆在2018年的一次小组讨论结束时表示:“我们需要确保我们尽自己的一份力量帮助这个饥饿的世界获得粮食。”

"That is totally the mantra," says Catherine Kling, an economist at Cornell University.

“这都成了口头禅了，”康奈尔大学的经济学家凯瑟琳·克林说。

"I'll bet I've been to 50 talks in the last five, 10 years where the beginning is, 'We have to feed 9 billion people by 2050. This is a crisis situation.' The word 'crisis' gets used regularly."

“我敢打赌，在过去的5年、10年里，我参加了50次谈话，谈话的开头都是'到2050年，我们必须养活90亿人’。这是一个危机局势。'危机’这个词经常被用到。”

But, in fact, the long-term trend, for more than a century, has been toward ever more abundant food, and declining prices.

但事实上，一个多世纪以来的长期趋势是，食物越来越丰富，价格也在不断下降。

To be sure, every once in a while, it really does seem like a crisis.

可以肯定的是，每隔一段时间，就会看起来像一场危机。

It certainly did in 2008.

2008年的时候就是这样。

Tom Hertel, a economist at Purdue University, remembers it well.

普渡大学的经济学家汤姆·赫特尔对此仍记忆犹新。

"This was right in the thick of the biofuel-driven madness," Hertel says, when government policies drove a surge in demand for corn to make ethanol. Rice and wheat prices were spiking for other reasons.

赫特尔说:“当时正是生物燃料驱动的疯狂时期”，当时政府的政策推动了用于制造乙醇的玉米需求的激增。大米和小麦价格飙升则有其他原因。”

"People were really panicking," he says.

“人们当时真的很恐慌，”他说。

Some economists thought that consumers would always experience chronic food shortages and high prices.

一些经济学家认为，消费者将一直经历长期的食品短缺和高价格。

Hertel didn't believe it, though.

不过，赫特尔并不这样认为。

He and his colleagues have a computer model of long-term trends that drive supply and demand for global food, and their model predicted plenty of food, with lower prices.

他和他的同事们有一个计算机模型，可以预测驱动全球粮食供求的长期趋势，他们的模型预测出会有大量的粮食，价格也会更低。

"So we wrote this paper, 'Debunking the New Normal,' and it was very unpopular," he recalls.

“所以我们写了一篇论文，题目叫'揭露新的常态’，这篇文章非常不受欢迎，”他回忆道。

"In fact, we weren't able to publish it!"

“事实上，这篇文章都没能发表！”

Eventually, he did find a journal to publish it.

最后，他终于找到了一家杂志愿意发表这篇文章。

And he turned out to be right.

然而事实证明他是对的。

Prices soon came back down.

价格很快就降下来了。

And in fact, the long-term trend, for more than a century, has been toward ever more abundant food, and declining prices.

事实上，一个多世纪以来的长期趋势也是这样，食物越来越丰富，价格不断在下降。

From 1900 to 2000, Hertel says, the number of people in the world quadrupled, yet food prices at the end of the century were only one-third of their starting level.

赫特尔说，从1900年到2000年，世界人口数量翻了两番，但本世纪末的食品价格只有开始水平的三分之一。

It's true, of course, that millions of people in the world are hungry or malnourished.

当然，世界上有数百万人正在挨饿或营养不良，这也是事实。

But Hertel and Kling say the main reason is that people lack the money to buy food, or because of war and political oppression.

但赫特尔和克林说，主要原因是人们没有钱买食物，或者因为战争和政治压迫。

Reducing hunger requires addressing poverty and conflict, not just growing more food.

减少饥饿需要解决贫困和冲突，而不仅仅是种植更多的粮食。

Kling, in fact, is mystified by all the talk about potential food shortages.

事实上，克林对所有关于潜在粮食短缺的讨论感到困惑。

"Part of the reason may be it's an effective communication device," she says.

“部分原因可能是它是一种有效的沟通工具，”她说。

Farmers and their lobbyists, she says, use the idea that the world needs more food to argue that governments shouldn't impose environmental regulations that might force farmers to pay for all the water pollution they cause, and the wetlands that they destroy.

她说，农民和他们的游说者利用世界需要更多粮食的观点来争辩说，政府不应该强加那些可能迫使农民为他们造成的水污染和为他们破坏的湿地买单的环境法规。

They say, "Oh, we can't possibly impose those costs. Farmers will go out of business and we'll starve," she says.

他们会说，“哦，我们不能强加这些成本。农民会破产，我们会挨饿。”她说道。

Even scientists may sometimes have reason to overstate the risks of future food shortages.

即使是科学家有时也有理由夸大未来粮食短缺的风险。

In 2008, Hertel says, "if you were in the market to raise money for agricultural research, it was a beneficial message."

赫特尔说，在2008年，“如果你想在市场上为农业研究筹集资金，这就是一个有用的信息。”

Also, it's human to worry, and it's easy to think of things that could disrupt the supply of food.

而且，担心是人的天性，很容易想到会破坏食物供应的事情。

For instance, right now, there's climate change.

例如，现在，就有气候变化的问题。

Tom Hertel has been looking at this.

汤姆·赫特尔最近一直在研究这个问题。

He says there is tremendous uncertainty, but a good chance that food production could get hammered by a warming planet after about 2050.

他说，目前还存在巨大的不确定性，但2050年后，全球变暖很可能会严重影响粮食生产。

For the next few decades, though, the trends point toward continuing abundance.

然而，在接下来的几十年里，这些趋势仍然指向持续的富足。

Farmers keep finding ways to grow more food on the same amount of land.

农民们一直在寻找在相同面积的土地上种植更多粮食的方法。

Population growth, which is the major factor driving the increase in demand for food, is now slowing down.

人口增长是推动粮食需求增长的主要因素，但现在正在放缓。

In fact, U.S. farmers have been so unhappy about low prices for their corn and soybeans and milk in recent years that they've demanded, and received, billions of dollars in government aid.

事实上，美国农民对近年来玉米、大豆和牛奶的低价非常不满，他们已经要求并得到了数十亿美元的政府援助。

Hertel says this situation gives governments an opportunity to address something more pressing.

赫特尔说，这种情况给各国政府提供了解决更紧迫问题的机会。

"The issue is not, can we produce enough food," he says.

“问题不在于我们能否生产足够的粮食，”他说。

"It is, can we produce enough food in a way that doesn't destroy the environment."

“问题在于，我们能否以不破坏环境的方式生产足够的食物。”

Farming consumes vast amounts of the planet's land and water.

农业消耗了地球上大量的土地和水。

But as farming becomes more productive, perhaps some of that land could be spared.

但随着农业生产效率的提高，或许部分土地可以被保留下来。

Farmers could turn some cropland back into grasslands, or forest, or wetlands.

这样农民可以把一些农田变成草地、森林或湿地。

"If farmers were paid to do this, this could be a very profitable activity, and it could become an important part of their revenue stream," Hertel says.

赫特尔说:“如果农民们做这件事有补贴的话，这将是一项非常有利可图的活动，并且它将成为他们收入来源的重要组成部分。”

This is already happening in Europe.

这已经在欧洲得到了实现。

This reduces greenhouse emissions.

这也减少了温室气体的排放。

It could help farmers cope with the warming climate, years from now.

它还可以帮助农民应对多年后变暖的气候问题。

问题

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