英语听力：自然百科 加州葡萄酒业（在线收听） |
In the fertile（肥沃的） valleys of central California, wine-making has grown into a giant industry and many of the family vineyards that helped develop the area still operate today. But in an era when people are increasingly concerned about the effects of development, the region's wine growers face the challenge of keeping the land viable and the multimillion-dollar industry prosperous. The result is a new self-imposed code for sustainable agriculture. “We have 120 acres that have been in our family for over a hundred years, in an area that is very highly developed. Producing wine is what enables us to keep the land in agriculture.”
The growers hope that the environmental code of farming practices will head off costly state regulations.
“Will we be just bottlers of other people's juice? Or will we be international bottlers of wines coming from other countries? Or will we have, in the face of all the economic and social pressure on California, a very viable and outstanding land? Well, you just can't claim it. You have to do things to ensure it.”
The new code deals with a range of land use topics, from reducing dependence on pesticides to limiting water consumption. But the wine growers are coming under fire for something the code does not address: the rapid growth of the industry.
In Sonoma County alone, vineyards now cover twice as much land as they did in 1977. All over California, vineyard acreage has been steadily increasing, with the latest estimate showing close to 500,000 acres being used for wine production.
But vineyards are just part of the sprawl（蔓延） in central California these days. Wine makers are competing for the region's resources with an increasing number of residential communities. And as sprawling vineyards meet urban sprawl, it's important for wine growers to find ways to better use the area's limited resources. |
| 原文地址：http://www.tingroom.com/lesson/zrbaike/2010/256408.html |