美国国家公共电台 NPR--Soil is a finite resource and a program helps farmers prevent erosion

Soil is a finite resource and a program helps farmers prevent erosion

Transcript¹

Polls show most traditional farmers don't believe they contribute to climate change. Two farmers in Illinois started a soil protection program that has myriad² climate benefits.

RACHEL MARTIN, HOST:

Agriculture in the U.S. accounts for 10% of the country's greenhouse gas emissions³. And yet, polls show most traditional farmers don't believe they contribute to climate change. Harvest Public Media's Dana Cronin reports on a program designed to get farmers in the fight against climate change by focusing on a different environmental issue they do believe in.

DANA CRONIN, BYLINE⁴: The Midwest is losing soil at an alarming rate. Conventional farming practices, like heavy tilling, have cost the region about a third of its topsoil. That's really concerning for farmers like Lin Warfel, who's grown corn and soybeans in Illinois pretty much his whole life.

LIN WARFEL: And all of a sudden there would - you know, a whole bunch of the soil would be gone. There would be a ravine there, kind of - you know, a small ravine where I used to have soil.

CRONIN: Some farmers are taking action, like Joe Rothermel, who I met up with at his favorite pancake house in Champaign, Illinois.

(SOUNDBITE OF RESTAURANT AMBIENCE)

JOE ROTHERMEL: Soil's a finite resource. We've already lost half our organic matter.

CRONIN: Rothermel also grows corn and soybeans, and he's so concerned about soil erosion that he and a colleague, Steve Stierwalt, started a program a few years ago to save the soil. It's called STAR, which Stierwalt says stands for Saving Tomorrow's Agriculture Resources.

STEVE STIERWALT: So many people understand, you know, rating things by stars. You may have been to a restaurant, and then you check to see what the star rankings of it are before you go.

CRONIN: Here's how it works. If you're a STAR farmer, you farm with as many STAR practices as you can - things like planting cover crops, limiting plowing⁵ and reducing the use of chemical fertilizer. The more you use, the higher rating your individual farm fields receive. So what does this have to do with climate change? Well, from Steve and Joe's perspective, not much.

STIERWALT: We don't use the word climate change. In the agricultural community, that becomes a political term.

CRONIN: But even though they don't talk about it, the type of farming STAR encourages helps to mitigate⁶ climate change because preventing soil erosion also keeps carbon in the ground. To demonstrate that, let's go back to Lin Warfel's farm. He joined STAR a couple years ago and started planting cover crops on some of his land to protect his soil.

WARFEL: So what you see right there is cereal rye.

CRONIN: Cereal rye is a winter crop that goes in between harvesting and planting corn and soybeans. The cover crop's root system helps keep his soil in place and also sequesters⁷ a lot of carbon from the atmosphere. So the STAR program is somewhat inadvertently enlisting⁸ conventional farmers in the fight against climate change, and that aligns⁹ with President Biden's goal for American agriculture to capture the same amount - if not more - of carbon as it emits.

Paige Buck¹⁰ is with the USDA's Natural Resources Conservation Service in Illinois. She's been glad to see STAR spread into other nearby states, including Iowa, Indiana and Colorado. Buck says what makes STAR so effective is that it's farmer led and farmer trusted.

PAIGE BUCK: Sometimes getting advice from the government or from getting it online - sometimes that's not what a farmer needs. What they need to do is they need to hear it from another farmer.

CRONIN: Buck and others want more programs like this one. Programs, they say, could help mitigate some of the worst effects of climate change. For NPR News, I'm Dana Cronin.

MARTIN: This story comes from "Hot Farm," a new podcast from the Food and Environment Reporting Network about the intersection¹¹ of agriculture and climate change.

(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)

1 transcript   

n.抄本，誊本，副本，肄业证书

参考例句：

• A transcript of the tapes was presented as evidence in court.一份录音带的文字本作为证据被呈交法庭。
• They wouldn't let me have a transcript of the interview.他们拒绝给我一份采访的文字整理稿。

2 myriad   

adj.无数的；n.无数，极大数量

参考例句：

• They offered no solution for all our myriad problems.对于我们数不清的问题他们束手无策。
• I had three weeks to make a myriad of arrangements.我花了三个星期做大量准备工作。

3 emissions   

排放物( emission的名词复数 )； 散发物（尤指气体）

参考例句：

• Most scientists accept that climate change is linked to carbon emissions. 大多数科学家都相信气候变化与排放的含碳气体有关。
• Dangerous emissions radiate from plutonium. 危险的辐射物从钚放散出来。

4 byline   

n.署名；v.署名

参考例句：

• His byline was absent as well.他的署名也不见了。
• We wish to thank the author of this article which carries no byline.我们要感谢这篇文章的那位没有署名的作者。

5 plowing   

v.耕( plow的现在分词 )；犁耕；费力穿过

参考例句：

• "There are things more important now than plowing, Sugar. "如今有比耕种更重要的事情要做呀，宝贝儿。 来自飘（部分）
• Since his wife's death, he has been plowing a lonely furrow. 从他妻子死后，他一直过着孤独的生活。 来自辞典例句

6 mitigate   

vt.（使）减轻，（使）缓和

参考例句：

• The government is trying to mitigate the effects of inflation.政府正试图缓和通货膨胀的影响。
• Governments should endeavour to mitigate distress.政府应努力缓解贫困问题。

7 sequesters   

v.使隔绝，使隔离( sequester的第三人称单数 )；扣押

参考例句：

• The dentist sequesters the tooth he is working on. 牙科医生把他正研究的牙齿隔开了。 来自互联网

8 enlisting   

v.（使）入伍， （使）参军( enlist的现在分词 )；获得（帮助或支持）

参考例句：

• He thought about enlisting-about the Spanish legion-about a profession. 他想去打仗，想参加西班牙军团，想找个职业。 来自辞典例句
• They are not enlisting men over thirty-five. 他们不召超过35岁的人入伍。 来自辞典例句

9 aligns   

使成一线( align的第三人称单数 )； 排整齐； 校准； 公开支持（某人、集体或观点）

参考例句：

• HASP SRM fully aligns with the software product lifecycle. HASPSRM完全遵循软件产品的生命周期。
• Significant employee aligns the interests of our employees and our shareholders. 员工大量持股可以使员工与股东的利益协调一致。

10 buck   

n.雄鹿，雄兔；v.马离地跳跃

参考例句：

• The boy bent curiously to the skeleton of the buck.这个男孩好奇地弯下身去看鹿的骸骨。
• The female deer attracts the buck with high-pitched sounds.雌鹿以尖声吸引雄鹿。

11 intersection   

n.交集，十字路口，交叉点；[计算机] 交集

参考例句：

• There is a stop sign at an intersection.在交叉路口处有停车标志。
• Bridges are used to avoid the intersection of a railway and a highway.桥用来避免铁路和公路直接交叉。