破译可可树的基因密码

    This is the VOA Special English Agriculture Report.
    这里是美国之音慢速英语农业报道。
     
    Cacao or cocoa trees grow in hot, rainy areas of Africa, Asia and Central and South America. Their beans are used to make cocoa powder, cocoa butter and of course chocolate.
    可可树生长在非洲、亚洲、中南美洲炎热多雨的地区。可可豆用于制作可可粉、可可脂,当然还有巧克力。

    There are five to six million growers, maybe more. Many are poor family farmers with only a few hectares.
    全球有5到6百万种植者,也许更多。多数是只种植几公顷、家境贫寒的农民。

    West Africa produces more than half of all cocoa beans. Ivory Coast leads the world in production, followed by its neighbor Ghana.
    西非可可豆产量占据了全球总产量的一半以上。科特迪瓦(Ivory Coast,又译作象牙海岸) 产量位居全球之首,紧随其后的是其邻国加纳。

    The trees are usually in their fifth year when they start to grow the pods that contain the beans. The trees produce the most pods when they are ten, but they are still productive long after that.
    可可树通常在第5个年头开始结包含可可豆的豆荚,在第10个年头时豆荚产量最高,但之后很久产量仍很丰富。

    Workers use large knives to cut the lower pods and long tools to remove pods from high on the tree. Later they break open the pods to remove the beans.
    工人们使用大刀割下树低处的豆荚,并使用长把工具收割树高处的豆荚。然后破开豆荚取出可可豆。

    A half-gram of chocolate requires about four hundred beans. The World Cocoa Foundation says an average pod contains twenty to fifty beans. And experts say growers can lose perhaps one-third of their harvest to diseases and insects.
    生产500克巧克力需要400粒可可豆。世界可可基金会说,每颗荚豆平均包含20至50粒可可豆。专家同时表示,病虫害可能会使种植者失去1/3的收成。

    But now scientists have genetic maps of two kinds of cocoa trees. These genomes are mostly complete and could lead scientists to new ways to increase production and prevent disease.
    但目前科学家们获得了2种可可树的基因图谱。这些基因组近乎完整,可能引导科学家发现一种增加产量和预防疾病的新途径。

    Mapping genes is the first step to understanding an organism. Next comes learning the job of each gene.
    基因定位是了解一个有机体的第一步。接下来是研究每个基因的职能。

    The American food company Mars took the lead in paying for mapping the genes of the Forastero cocoa tree. The Forastero provides eighty to ninety percent of the world's cocoa beans. Mars depends on those beans for its M&Ms and other chocolate candies.
    美国玛氏(Mars)食品公司率先投资于佛拉斯特罗(forastero)可可树的基因定位。佛拉斯特罗可可树的可可豆产量占到了全球总产量的80%到90%。玛氏依赖这些可可豆生产其M&Ms以及其他品牌的巧克力豆。

    The company's research partners included several universities and the United States Department of Agriculture.
    该公司的研究合作伙伴包括美国农业部和一些大学。

    The average West African cocoa farmer produces about four hundred kilos of beans per hectare. But Howard-Yana Shapiro, head of plant science and external research at Mars, thinks that science could greatly increase the yield.
    西非可可种植者平均每公顷可以生产大约400公斤可可豆。但玛氏公司植物科学和对外研究主管霍华德-雅娜·夏皮罗(Howard-Yana Shapiro)认为,科技能够大大提高产量。
     
    HOWARD-YANA SHAPIRO: "There's a yield potential of maybe four thousand kilos, ten times what the average is in West Africa."
    夏皮罗:“产量潜力可能是4千公斤,10倍于西非现在的平均产量。”

    A competitor of Mars, Hershey's, supported the gene mapping of the Criollo, a far less common cacao tree. Cirad, a French government research center, led scientists from six countries in creating that genome.
    玛氏公司的一个竞争者,好时(Hershey's)公司支持了克里奥罗(criollo)可可树的基因定位,这是一种不太常见的可可树。法国国际合作发展农业研究中心(CIRAD),一家法国政府研究中心领导来自6个国家的科学家正建立该基因组。

    We'll talk more about the cocoa industry next week, when we look at efforts to help child laborers in Ivory Coast and Ghana.
    下周我们将继续讨论可可行业,关注帮助科特迪瓦和加纳童工的措施。