VOA慢速英語:US Farmers Struggle With Drought

This is the VOA Special English Agriculture Report.

這里是美國之音慢速英語農(nóng)業(yè)報道。

A drought across much of the United States is forcing farmers to make difficult decisions. Damage to corn and soybeans is already severe in the hardest-hit areas.

席卷美國大部分地區(qū)的干旱迫使農(nóng)民做出艱難的決定。在重災(zāi)區(qū)，玉米和大豆受損害已經(jīng)非常嚴重。

Alan Bowers Junior is a farmer in the state of Illinois in the Midwest.

艾倫·鮑爾斯(Alan Bowers)是伊利諾伊州中西部的農(nóng)民。

ALAN BOWERS JR.: "You get up in the morning, and you think it might be another thirteen months before we get a paycheck. The corn and soybean crop is our paycheck."

鮑爾斯：“早上起床，就覺得可能還得再過13個月才能拿到我們的薪水。玉米和大豆作物就是我們的薪水。”

The corn on his farm is so dry, the stalks break apart just by touching them. The maize is unusable. So in the middle of July, Alan Bowers decided to cut down his crop to avoid a total loss.

他農(nóng)場的玉米非常干燥，一碰玉米稈都掉了，玉米就不能用了。所以在7月中旬，他決定把莊稼都砍掉，以避免徹底損失。

ALAN BOWERS JR.: "We are making what they call corn silage out of this for the animals, for the cows. And if you wait till it's completely dried up, it won't even make suitable feed for the animals."

鮑爾斯：“我們正在用這些荒廢的玉米給動物還有奶牛做他們所謂的玉米青貯飼料。如果你等到這完全干透，就不適合給動物做飼料了。”

Alan Bowers and his wife, Lori, are hoping for a small insurance settlement to help them pay their bills until next year.

鮑爾斯和他的妻子，洛莉(Lori)，希望能拿到一筆小的保險賠償，以幫助他們支付明年前的帳單。

LORI BOWERS: "People don't realize we have no boss and we have nobody to help us. And it's tough. You have to work together. You have to work with a husband and a wife and family, and together try to work through it."

洛莉·鮑爾斯：“大家沒有意識到，我們沒有老板，也沒有人幫我們。這很殘酷。你只能和丈夫或妻子還有家人一起努力，一起闖過難關(guān)。”

The Bowers could also lose their soybeans to the record high temperatures and lack of rain in the worst drought in more than half a century.

在創(chuàng)紀錄的高溫天氣和50年多年一遇的嚴重干旱少雨情況下，鮑爾斯一家的大豆可能也會有所損失。

And Alan Bowers says if next year is anything like this, the farm itself may not survive. The farm has been in his family for four generations.

鮑爾斯說，如果明年還是這樣的話，農(nóng)場可能無法生存下去。這個農(nóng)場在他們家族中已經(jīng)經(jīng)歷了四代人。

The drought is reducing the depth of the Mississippi River, the nation's longest and most economically important waterway. Last year, heavy rains flooded the banks along parts of the Mississippi. This year, the level is so low, shipwrecks normally hidden underwater can be clearly seen.

干旱使得密西西比河水位降低，密西西比河是全美最長，最經(jīng)濟的重要水路。去年，大雨淹沒了密西西比河的部分河岸。今年的水位這么低，連平時隱藏在水下的船只殘骸都可以清楚地看到。

Jasen Brown is a hydraulic engineer with the Army Corps of Engineers.

杰森·布朗(Jasen Brown)是陸軍工程兵部隊的水利工程師。

JASEN BROWN: "So there's a lot of money at stake for these farmers, and there's other commodities that are coming down the river as well. It's not just grain, but it's also some chemicals that are coming down the river. Coal is coming down the river. Various different things like that."

布朗：“所以，對這些農(nóng)民來說，大量的資金都會受到威脅。還有很多物資也要從這條水路通過，不僅是糧食，還有化學(xué)品，煤以及其他多種物資。”

Sixty percent of all grain exported from the United States travels on barges along the Mississippi.

從美國出口的60%的糧食都要經(jīng)密西西比河運輸。

An Army Corps of Engineers survey ship called the MV Pathfinder looks for places along the river that are not deep enough for traffic. Crews then either dredge the sites to make them deeper or mark them with warning buoys. Terry Bequette, the ship's captain, says companies have to lighten the loads of their barges when the water level is low.

一艘名為“MV探路者號”的陸軍工程兵部隊測量船在搜尋沿河深度不適合航行的區(qū)域，隨后船員要么挖掘該地點讓航道變深，要么做好警示標記。船長特里·貝奎特(Terry Bequette)說，水位太低的時候航運公司只能減輕運載量。

TERRY BEQUETTE: "It's low and it's bad, but it's not the end-of-the-world bad. The industry just lightens their loads and hopes for the best."

貝奎特：“水位很低，情況很糟，但還不是世界末日那樣糟。航運公司只能減少運載量并祈禱了。”

A new American Meteorological Society study links climate change to a drought last year in Texas and some other extreme weather events. Natural conditions played a part. But the study found that human activity made the Texas drought twenty times more likely than in the nineteen sixties.

美國氣象學(xué)會(American Meteorological Society)一項新的研究把氣候變化與去年發(fā)生在德克薩斯州的干旱和一些惡劣天氣事件聯(lián)系起來。自然條件發(fā)揮了部分作用。但該研究發(fā)現(xiàn)，人類活動使得德州干旱比上世紀60年代嚴重20倍。