VOA慢速英语2010年-Agriculture Report - Phone Call About

This is the VOA Special English Agriculture Report.

Advice on how much fertilizer to use will soon be just a phone call away for rice farmers in the Philippines.

The Philippine Department of Agriculture and the International Rice Research Institute plan to launch a free service next month.

Farmers will call a number and a recorded voice will ask them simple questions in Tagalog or other languages including English.

RECORDED VOICE: "Welcome. This is the nutrient¹ manager for rice. Answer a statement by pressing the appropriate number on your phone."

For example, to get fertilizer guidelines² for the wet season, they press one. For the dry season, they press two.

Farmers will be asked about the size of their field and how many bags of rice it produced last year.

What about natural sources of fertilizer? Does the farmer return rice straw to the field? Is the field near a lake or river that floods, or in a low area collecting soil and other material from nearby hills?

A rice farmer in Laguna province, in the Philippines

About ten minutes later the farmer will get a text message. The message will advise what kind of fertilizer to use and how much. The grower will also get suggestions about when to plant and harvest the rice.

Roland Buresh at the International Rice Research Institute helped developed the system. Mr. Buresh says fertilizer represents about one-fifth of the cost of inputs³ for rice production.

Hesays the service could help farmers in the Philippines increase their yields and their profits.

ROLAND BURESH: "If we in a year can be reaching just five thousand farmers and their fields can be increasing the yield by half a ton per hectare, we could be looking at profitabilities for those farmers in the range of half a million dollars."

Danielle Nierenberg at the Worldwatch Institute, an environmental research group, says the system could also help reduce pollution.

DANIELLE NIERENBERG: "In the Philippines and all over Asia, fertilizer has been overused and misused⁴ because no one explains to them how much they need or how to use it."

The technology could also be copied for crops in other places. Danielle Nierenberg has been traveling across sub-Saharan Africa. She says the cost of a cell phone there is low enough that most farmers have their own or borrow someone else's.

In Zambia, for example, farmers without bank accounts can use their phones to buy seeds and fertilizers. They can also get information on how much their crop is selling for in city markets.

DANIELLE NIERENBERG: "They can decide whether they want to travel all the way from their village to the city, because sometimes farmers get there and prices are too low."

And that's the VOA Special English Agriculture Report, written by Jerilyn Watson with Steve Baragona. Tell us what your mobile phone means to you as a farm tool. You can post comments at voaspecialenglish.com or on Facebook and Twitter at VOA Learning English. I'm Bob Doughty⁵.

 

1 nutrient   

adj.营养的，滋养的；n.营养物，营养品

参考例句：

• Magnesium is the nutrient element in plant growth.镁是植物生长的营养要素。
• The roots transmit moisture and nutrient to the trunk and branches.根将水分和养料输送到干和枝。

2 guidelines   

n.指导方针，准则

参考例句：

• The government has drawn up guidelines on the treatment of the mentally ill. 政府制订了对待精神病人的指导方针。
• Planners seem a little uncomfortable with the current government guidelines. 规划师似乎不太接受现行的政府指道方针。

3 inputs   

n.输入( input的名词复数 )；投入；输入端；输入的数据v.把…输入电脑( input的第三人称单数 )

参考例句：

• Uncheck the inputs checked for optimization in the previous stage. 不测试那些已经测试过的优化了的以前步骤的inputs.（变量参数）。 来自互联网
• Just in case, save in a file the inputs obtained at the previous stage. 以防万一，保存以前步骤获得的inputs（变量参数值）到一个文件中去。 来自互联网

4 misused   

v.使用…不当( misuse的过去式和过去分词 )；把…派作不正当的用途；虐待；滥用

参考例句：

• He misused his dog shamefully. 他可耻地虐待自己的狗。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• He had grossly misused his power. 他严重滥用职权。 来自《简明英汉词典》

5 doughty   

adj.勇猛的，坚强的

参考例句：

• Most of successful men have the characteristics of contumacy and doughty.绝大多数成功人士都有共同的特质：脾气倔强，性格刚强。
• The doughty old man battled his illness with fierce determination.坚强的老人用巨大毅力与疾病作斗争。