英文原文阅读 | Farmers all over the world are suffering from a "pesticides treadmill". Pests are growing resistant to their sprays. So farmers have to spray ever more to have any effect, or buy new, more expensive chemicals. But at the same time world cotton prices have stagnated. So farmers face a serious squeeze on their profits, combined with growing threats to their health from the pesticides. Is there another way? Maharashtra state is a centre of India's cotton growing -- much of it on small farms such as those in Wardha district. Here many insects live in the cotton fields. The most destructive, the American bollworm, is spreading and growing resistant to pyrethroids and other cheap pesticides. To save their crops, farmers are spraying typically 10-12 times in a single growing season. One farmer, Vittal Rao Karamore, says he sprayed his fields 14 times. Partly as a result, cotton farmers have become the biggest users of pesticides inIndia. Cotton occupies just 5% of the country's fields, says NRI entomologist Derek Russell, but those fields use more than half of the country's pesticides. This repeated spraying is very expensive, forcing many farmers into debt. And it is counter-productive, encouraging resistance to the chemicals among the pests. So the next year the farmer must spray even more. Spraying often pollutes drinking water and neighbouring crops, and is a health hazard for farmers and their families. It is also hard labour. To spray a hectare of cotton, the farmer carries equipment weighing about 40 kilograms for 10 kilometres up and down the rows in the hot sun. No wonder women such as Bindutai Bhoge, a widow from thevillageofKaranji Bhoge, employ men to do their spraying. So heavy spraying increases the vulnerability of farming communities to debt and poor health, while reducing the money the farmers have for other vital needs, such as educating their children. Farmers like Sulochana Balpande from Karanji Kaji village, who grows cotton partly to provide money to educate her two daughters. The tragedy is that much of this spraying is unnecessary. Researchers under Dr Keshav Kranthi of the Central Institute for Cotton Research in Nagpur, in collaboration with Derek Russell of the NRI, have spent several years investigating which pests cause real damage to the cotton plants, and when. They showed that the deadly bollworm is a migrant that only visits cotton fields briefly during most years. Constant spraying may simply kill other insects, who are harmless or even beneficial to the crop. So Dr Kranthi drew up simple rules for spraying, based on teaching farmers to recognise the different insects on their crops. Once farmers know which pests are dangerous and when they attack, they can confine their spraying to the critical moments when it will make a real difference, says the institute's director, Dr C.D. Mayee. Agricultural students from nearbyAkolaUniversitysuggested a new way of getting the message across, by staging street theatres at farmers' fairs. In one play, the cotton plant is represented as a drunk addicted to pesticides. Constant spraying is like giving alcohol to a drunk, they say. The plant will do better without. The project has been an astonishing success, says Derek Russell. Villagers now spray only once or twice a season -- and sometimes not at all. They are healthier and wealthier. And far from losing crops, their production has risen by 75%, because they have been able to spend more time and money on seeds and fertilisers. Today, Bindutai Bhoge walks the fields to check for pests rather than paying men to spray. And Vittal Rao Karamore, who planned to give up cotton growing, now only sprays once or twice a season and is in profit. He can spend his time weeding and watering his other crops -- and getting more rest. |
题型技巧分析 | 是非无判断题是上半年度的重点题型,有顺序原则。 注意看清是TRUE还是YES, 本篇是TRUE/ FALSE/ NOT GIVEN 解题步骤: 1. 速读句子,找出考点词(容易有问题的部分)。考点词:比较级,最高级,数据(时间),程度副词,特殊形容词,绝对化的词(only, most, each, any, every, the same as等) 2. 排除考点词,在余下的词中找定位词,去原文定位。 3. 重点考察考点词是否有提及,是否正确。 TRUE的原则是同义替换,至少有一组近义词。 FALSE是题目和原文截然相反,不可共存,通常有至少一组反义词。 NOT GIVEN原文未提及,不做任何推断,尤其多考察题目的主语等名词在原文是否有提及。 4. 通读所有段落,依次寻找答案。因为每段都会有答案,因此现在所需要做的事情就是到每段去找答案。要注意在选出信息后,要在选出的段落上做上记号,以免浪费时间。 |