纽约时报 疫情下的屠宰场 食品链最薄弱的环节(1)

The Food Chain's Weakest Link: Slaughterhouses

食品链最薄弱的环节——屠宰场

The modern American slaughterhouse is a very different place from the one that Upton Sinclair depicted² in his early-20th-century novel, "The Jungle."

美国当代的屠宰场早已不是20世纪初厄普顿·辛克莱在小说《丛林》中描绘的模样。

Many are giant, sleek³ refrigerated assembly lines,

如今，很多屠宰场都变成了巨大而光滑的冷藏装配线，

staffed mostly by unionized workers who slice, debone and "gut⁴ snatch" hog⁵ and beef carcasses, under constant oversight⁶ of government inspectors⁷.

雇佣的大多都是工会的工人，由他们负责将杀好的猪或者牛切片，去骨，“去内脏”，还要经常接受政府有关工作人员的检查和监督。

The jobs are often grueling and sometimes dangerous,

屠宰场的工作大多都极其辛苦，有时还很危险，

but pork and beef producers boast about having some of the most heavily sanitized work spaces of any industry.

猪肉和牛肉生产商却总是吹嘘说，他们行业几乎是所有行业中消毒工作做得最严格的行业。

Yet meat plants, honed over decades for maximum efficiency and profit,

然而，数十年来一直渴望实现最大效率和利润的肉类加工场

have become major "hot spots" for the coronavirus pandemic,

最近却成了新冠病毒爆发的“热点区域”——

with some reporting widespread illnesses among their workers.

一些加工厂报告称，他们的员工出现了大面积感染的现象。

The health crisis has revealed how these plants are becoming the weakest link in the nation's food supply chain,

揭示这些加工厂为何变成了这个国家食品供应链中最薄弱的环节，

posing a serious challenge to meat production.

给肉类生产带来严峻挑战的恰好就是它们的卫生危机。

After decades of consolidation⁸, there are about 800 federally inspected slaughterhouses in the United States,

经过数十年的整合，美国现在大约共有800个处于联邦监督之下的屠宰场，

processing billions of pounds of meat for food stores each year.

这些屠宰场每年为食品店加工的肉类重达数十亿磅。

But a relatively⁹ small number of them account for the vast majority of production.

问题是，这块蛋糕绝大部分都掌握在了个别加工厂手里。

In the cattle industry, a little more than 50 plants are responsible for as much as 98 percent of slaughtering¹⁰ and processing in the United States,

就拿牛肉屠宰行业来说，足足有98%的牛肉屠宰和加工份额落在50出头家加工厂头上，

according to Cassandra Fish, a beef analyst¹¹.

据牛肉分析师卡桑德拉·菲什透露。

Shutting down one plant, even for a few weeks, is like closing an airport hub.

让他们中间的任何一家歇业——哪怕只是歇业几个星期——的严重性都不亚于关闭一个机场枢纽的严重性。

It backs up hog and beef production across the country,

全国各地的生猪和牛肉生产都会受到影响，

crushes prices paid to farmers and eventually leads to months of meat shortages.

支付给养殖户的肉价也会缩水，最终还会引发连续数月的肉类短缺问题。

"Slaughterhouses are a critical bottleneck¹² in the system,"

“屠宰场算是整个供应系统比较关键的一个瓶颈吧，”

said Julie Niederhoff, an associate professor of supply chain management at Syracuse University.

锡拉丘兹大学供应链管理副教授朱莉·尼德霍夫说道。

"When they go down, we are in trouble."

“他们一旦倒下，我们就麻烦了。”

The ripple¹³ effects of the virus are now being felt across the entire meat supply chain, all the way to grocery store freezers.

如今，整个肉类供应链，小至超市的冷柜都感受到了新冠病毒引发的连锁反应。

More than a dozen beef, pork and chicken processing plants have closed or are running at greatly reduced speeds because of the pandemic.

大流行爆发后，已经有十几家牛肉、猪肉和鸡肉加工厂关闭或低速运营。

This past week, the number of cattle slaughtered¹⁴ dropped nearly 22 percent from the same period a year ago,

农业部的数据显示，过去一周，肉牛屠宰量比去年同期下降了近22%，

while hog slaughter¹ was down 6 percent, according to the Department of Agriculture.

生猪屠宰量也下降了6%。

1 slaughter   

n.屠杀，屠宰；vt.屠杀，宰杀

参考例句：

• I couldn't stand to watch them slaughter the cattle.我不忍看他们宰牛。
• Wholesale slaughter was carried out in the name of progress.大规模的屠杀在维护进步的名义下进行。

2 depicted   

描绘，描画( depict的过去式和过去分词 )； 描述

参考例句：

• Other animals were depicted on the periphery of the group. 其他动物在群像的外围加以修饰。
• They depicted the thrilling situation to us in great detail. 他们向我们详细地描述了那激动人心的场面。

3 sleek   

adj.光滑的，井然有序的；v.使光滑，梳拢

参考例句：

• Women preferred sleek,shiny hair with little decoration.女士们更喜欢略加修饰的光滑闪亮型秀发。
• The horse's coat was sleek and glossy.这匹马全身润泽有光。

4 gut   

n.[pl.]胆量；内脏；adj.本能的；vt.取出内脏

参考例句：

• It is not always necessary to gut the fish prior to freezing.冷冻鱼之前并不总是需要先把内脏掏空。
• My immediate gut feeling was to refuse.我本能的直接反应是拒绝。

5 hog   

n.猪；馋嘴贪吃的人；vt.把…占为己有，独占

参考例句：

• He is greedy like a hog.他像猪一样贪婪。
• Drivers who hog the road leave no room for other cars.那些占着路面的驾驶员一点余地都不留给其他车辆。

6 oversight   

n.勘漏，失察，疏忽

参考例句：

• I consider this a gross oversight on your part.我把这件事看作是你的一大疏忽。
• Your essay was not marked through an oversight on my part.由于我的疏忽你的文章没有打分。

7 inspectors   

n.检查员( inspector的名词复数 )；（英国公共汽车或火车上的）查票员；（警察）巡官；检阅官

参考例句：

• They got into the school in the guise of inspectors. 他们假装成视察员进了学校。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• Inspectors checked that there was adequate ventilation. 检查员已检查过，通风良好。 来自《简明英汉词典》

8 consolidation   

n.合并,巩固

参考例句：

• The denser population necessitates closer consolidation both for internal and external action. 住得日益稠密的居民，对内和对外都不得不更紧密地团结起来。 来自英汉非文学 - 家庭、私有制和国家的起源
• The state ensures the consolidation and growth of the state economy. 国家保障国营经济的巩固和发展。 来自汉英非文学 - 中国宪法

9 relatively   

adv.比较...地，相对地

参考例句：

• The rabbit is a relatively recent introduction in Australia.兔子是相对较新引入澳大利亚的物种。
• The operation was relatively painless.手术相对来说不痛。

10 slaughtering   

v.屠杀，杀戮，屠宰( slaughter的现在分词 )

参考例句：

• The Revolutionary Tribunal went to work, and a steady slaughtering began. 革命法庭投入工作，持续不断的大屠杀开始了。 来自英汉非文学 - 历史
• \"Isn't it terrific slaughtering pigs? “宰猪的！ 来自汉英文学 - 中国现代小说

11 analyst   

n.分析家，化验员；心理分析学家

参考例句：

• What can you contribute to the position of a market analyst?你有什么技能可有助于市场分析员的职务？
• The analyst is required to interpolate values between standards.分析人员需要在这些标准中插入一些值。

12 bottleneck   

n.瓶颈口，交通易阻的狭口；妨生产流程的一环

参考例句：

• The transportation bottleneck has blocked the movement of the cargo.运输的困难阻塞了货物的流通。
• China's strained railroads already become a bottleneck for the economy.中国紧张的铁路运输已经成为经济增长的瓶颈。

13 ripple   

n.涟波，涟漪，波纹，粗钢梳；vt.使...起涟漪，使起波纹； vi.呈波浪状，起伏前进

参考例句：

• The pebble made a ripple on the surface of the lake.石子在湖面上激起一个涟漪。
• The small ripple split upon the beach.小小的涟漪卷来，碎在沙滩上。

14 slaughtered   

v.屠杀，杀戮，屠宰( slaughter的过去式和过去分词 )

参考例句：

• The invading army slaughtered a lot of people. 侵略军杀了许多人。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• Hundreds of innocent civilians were cruelly slaughtered. 数百名无辜平民遭残杀。 来自《简明英汉词典》