This is the VOA Special English Agriculture Report.
这里是美国之音特别英语农业报道。
Suppose you eat rice every day. But one day you go to the store and discover that the price is more than you can pay.
假设你每天都吃大米。但是有一天，你去商店的时候发现价格已经超出了你的支付能力。
That happened to millions of people two years ago at the height of the world food crisis. Between April of two thousand seven and March of two thousand eight the price of rice doubled in many places.
两年前最严重的世界粮食危机期间，数以百万人遭遇了这种情况。2007年4月至2008年3月份期间，许多地方的米价翻倍。
Economists blamed the crisis on different causes, including high energy costs, bad weather and the use of food-crop lands for biofuel production.
经济学家把这次粮食危机归咎于各种不同原因，包括能源价格上涨，天气恶劣，以及转为生物燃料用途的粮食作物用地。
High food prices pushed more people in developing countries into poverty and hunger. Some researchers say people living in cities in West Africa may have suffered most of all.
高涨的食品价格迫使发展中国家更多人陷入贫困和饥饿的境地。一些研究人员表示，居住在西非城市的人们遭受的影响尤其突出。
Geographers from three American colleges did a study that will appear in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. William Moseley of Macalester College in Minnesota led the study.
美国三所大学的地理学家进行了一项研究，研究结果将发表在《美国国家科学院院报》。明尼苏达州麦卡莱斯特学院的William Moseley领导了该项研究。
The team looked at thirty years' worth of information on food security and agricultural policy in Gambia, Ivory Coast and Mali. Most of the research centered on rice, an important crop in those three West African countries.
该研究小组对冈比亚，象牙海岸和马里近30年来有价值的食品安全和农业政策信息进行了研究。大部分研究集中在大米方面，大米是这三个西非国家的重要农作物。
The researchers say Gambia and Ivory Coast suffered more during the food crisis than Mali did. They say this was because people in Gambia and Ivory Coast had come to depend on imported rice.
研究人员表示，冈比亚和象牙海岸在粮食危机期间，遭受的冲击比马里更加严重。他们说，这是因为冈比亚和象牙海岸的人们过于依赖进口大米。
Local rice production fell after the countries reduced farm supports and import taxes under free market reforms. That meant rice farmers were not only earning less but facing greater competition from imports. Then, when the food crisis hit, the cost of foreign rice shot up.
在自由市场改革的情况下，这些国家减少了对农业的支持，降低了进口税，导致了当地大米的产量下降。这意味着米农不仅赚的更少，而且要面临进口产品更大的竞争。因此，粮食危机来临时，国外进口大米的价格暴涨。
The researchers say Mali suffered less because it depended less on imported rice, in part because of geography. Mali is not a coastal country with ports like Ivory Coast and Gambia.
研究人员表示，马里遭受的冲击没有那么严重是因为他们对进口大米的依赖更小，部分原因是由于地理位置。马里不是海岸国家，不像象牙海岸和冈比亚一样拥有港口。
Laurence Becker from Oregon State University says after gaining independence, African nations tried to help farmers. Governments provided low-cost seeds and fertilizers. They built processing mills and roads to market. And they protected their markets with high tariffs on imported food.
俄勒冈州立大学的Laurence Becker表示，获得独立后，非洲国家试图帮助农民。政府提供了成本低廉的种子和肥料。他们建起了加工厂和通往市场的道路。同时他们对进口食品征收高关税以保护本地市场。
But by the late nineteen seventies and the nineteen eighties, those countries no longer had much money to help farmers. So they changed policies and tried another way to improve agriculture. Governments and major lenders like the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund turned to free market policies.
但是到了70年代末和80年代，这些国家已经没有更多的资金来帮助农民。所以，他们改变了政策，尝试用另一种方法来促进农业的发展。政府和主要的借贷机构，例如世界银行和国际货币基金组织转向了自由市场政策。
We'll talk more next week about how the researchers link that change to the effects of the recent food crisis.
下周，我们会详细讲述研究人员指出的这种政策的变化对近期的粮食危机造成的影响之间的联系。
And that's the VOA Special English Agriculture Report, written by Jerilyn Watson. I'm Steve Ember.
这里是美国之音特别英语农业报道，是由Jerilyn Watson编辑，我是Steve Ember。