The True Cost of Food
1. For more than forty years the cost of food has been rising. It has now reached a point where a growing number of people believe that it is far too high, and that bringing it down will be one of the great challenges of the twenty first century. That cost, however, is not in immediate cash. In the West at least, most food is now far cheaper to buy in relative terms than it was in 1960. The cost is in the collateral damage of the very methods of food production that have made the food cheaper: in the pollution of water, the enervation of soil, the destruction of wildlife, the harm to animal welfare and the threat to human health caud by modern industrial agriculture.
2. First mechanisation then mass u of chemical fertilirs and pesticides, then monocultures, then battery rearing of livestock, and now genetic engineering —the onward march of intensive farming has emed unstoppable in the last half-century, as the yields of produce have soared. But the damage it has caud has been colossal. In Britain, for example, many of our best-loved farmland birds, such as the skylark, the grey partridge鹧鸪, the lapwing and the corn bunting, have vanished from huge stretches of countryside, as have even more wild flowers and incts. This is a direct result of the way we have produced our food in the last four decades. Thousands of miles of hedgerows, thousands of ponds, have disappeared from the landscape. The faecal filth of salmon farming has driven wild salmo
n from many of the a lochs and rivers of Scotland. Natural soil fertility is dropping in many areas becau of continuous industrial fertilir and pesticide u, while the growth of algae is increasing in lakes becau of the fertilir run-off.
如愿的意思
3. Put it all together and it looks like a battlefield, but consumers rarely make the connection at the dinner table. That is mainly becau the costs of all this damage are what economists refer to as externalities，they are outside the main transaction, which is for example producing and lling a field of wheat, and are borne directly by neither producers nor consumers. To many, the costs may not even appear to be financial at all, but merely aesthetic— a terrible shame, but nothing to do with money. And anyway they, as consumers of food, certainly aren't paying for it, are they?
4. But the costs to society can actually be quantified and, when added up, can amount to staggering sums. A remarkable exerci in doing this has been carried out by one of the world's leading thinkers on the future of agriculture, Professor Jules Pretty, Director of the Centre for Environment and Society at the University of Esx. Professor Pretty and his colleagues calculated the externalities of British agriculture for one particular year. They added up the costs of repairing the damage it caud, and came up with a total figure of £2,343 m. This is equivalent to £208 for every hectare of arable land and permanent pasture, almost as much again as the total government and EU spend o
n British farming in that year. And according to Professor Pretty, it was a conrvative estimate.
5. The costs included: £120m for removal of pesticides; £16m for removal of nitrates;£55m for removal of phosphates and soil; £;23m for the removal of the bug cryptosporidium from drinking water by water companies; £125m for damage to wildlife habitats, hedgerows and dry stone walls; £1,113m from emissions of gas likely to contribute to climate change; £106m from soil erosion and organic carbon loss; £169m from food poisoning; and £607m from cattle dia. Professor Pretty draws a simple but memorable conclusion from all this: our food bills are actually three-fold. We are paying for our suppodly cheaper food in three parate ways:once over the counter, condly through our taxes, which provide the enormous subsidies propping up modern intensive farming, and thirdly to clean up the mess that modern farming leaves behind.
6. So can the true cost of food be brought down? Breaking away from industrial agriculture as the solution to hunger may be very hard for some countries, but in Britain, where the immediate need to supply food is less urgent, and the costs and the damage of intensive farming have been clearly en, it may be more feasible The government needs to create sustainable, competitive and diver farming and food ctors, which will contribute to a thriving and sustainable rural economy, and advance environmental, economic, health, and animal welfare goals.
7. But if industrial agriculture is to be replaced, what is a viable: alternative? Professor Pretty feels that organic farming would be too big a jump in thinking and in practices for many farmers. Furthermore, the price premium would put the produce out of reach of many poorer consumers. He is recommending the immediate introduction of a 'Greener Food Standard', which would push the market towards more sustainable environmental practices than the current norm, while not requiring the full commitment to organic production.Such a standard would compri agreed practices for different kinds of farming, covering agrochemical u, soil health, land management, water and energy u, food safety and animal health. It could go a long way, he says, to shifting consumers as well as farmers towards a more sustainable system of agriculture.
Reading Exercis
如何更换微信主题Questions 1-6: Do the following statements agree with the claims of the writer in the passage?
(Y es/ No/ Not Given)
1 Environmentalists take a pessimistic view of the world for a number of reasons. Y
2 Data on the Earth’s natural resources has only been collected since 1972. NG
国庆前夕
3 The number of starving people in the world has incread in recent years. N
4 Extinct species are being replaced by new species. NG
5 Some pollution problems have been correctly linked to industrialization. Y
6 It would be best to attempt to slow down economic growth. N
Question 7 What aspect of scientific rearch does the writer express concern about in paragraph 4?
A the need to produce results
B the lack of financial support
C the lection of areas to rearch
D the desire to solve every rearch problem
Question 8 The writer quotes from the Worldwide Fund for Nature to illustrate how
打太极拳A influential the mass media can be.
B effective environmental groups can be.
听课记录及评析C the mass media can help groups rai funds
D environmental groups can exaggerate their claims.
防晒霜可以带上飞机吗Question 9 What is the writer’s main point about lobby groups in paragraph 6?
A Some are more active than others
B Some are better organized than others.
C. some receive more criticism than others
D. Some support more important issues than others.
Question 10 The writer suggests that newspapers print items that are intended to
A.educate readers
< their readers’ expectations
C. encourage feedback from readers.
D mislead readers
Question 11 What does the writer say about America’s waste problem?
A. It will increa in line with population growth.
B. It is not as important as we have been led to believe.
C. It has been reduced through public awareness of the issues.
D. It is only significant in certain areas of the country.
Question 12-14联通异地销户
The writer admits that global warming is a 12________ challenge, but says that it will not have a catastrophic impact on our future, if we deal with it in the 13__________ way. If we try to reduce the levels of greenhou gas, he believes that it would only have a minimal impact on rising temperatures. He feels it would be better to spend money on the more 14_________ health problem of providing the world’s population with clean drinking water.
A unrealistic
B agreed
梅花诗词C expensive
D right
E long-term
F usual
G surprising H personal I urgent
