VOA标准英语2011--River Basins Could Help Ensure Food Secu

River Basins Could Help Ensure Food Security

The world’s major river basins may hold the key to doubling food production in the coming years. The idea was discussed at the 14th World Water Congress in Brazil.
A new report says while water shortages do exist around the world, water scarcity¹ is not the major obstacle to producing more food. Rather, the report says, it’s the “inefficient and inequitable distribution of the massive amounts of water that flow through the breadbaskets of key river basins.”
Story to tell
These include the Nile, Ganges, Andes, Yellow, Niger and Volta. Dr. Simon Cook and his colleagues studied 10 major river basins in all. He said river basins have a story to tell.
“The first thing that they tell us is that there is quite massive unused capacity to produce more food without necessarily compromising the water resources,” he said.
Cook was the coordinator² for the Basin Focal Research Project for the Challenge Program on Water and Food.
“They tell us the major potential lies in rain-fed agriculture, not in irrigation. Although in Africa there is substantial scope for irrigation. They tell us that many of the problems are not problems of capacity. They’re problems of the way that resource has been appropriated in, what you might call, an unbalanced way,” he said.
Potent³ potential
River basins provide water, food, energy and biodiversity -- all things necessary for life. But Cook said these are often used inefficiently⁴, especially water.
“If you look at the total amount of water going into river basins and the total amount of food coming out of river basins, the conversion⁵ ratio is pretty small, pretty low. And certainly in the African basins it was often 10 percent or even less of capacity. So, there immediately you can see that there’s a huge potential to actually satisfy future food demands without necessarily compromising even more scarce water supplies,” he said.
The river basin is much more than just the channel of water and adjacent land. Cook said the whole landscape should be included.
“Often when people think of river basins they only think what happens once the water actually gets into the channel. But certainly in African basins often the proportion of water that gets into the channel, that is what’s called blue water, is a fraction of the total water going through the river basin system,” he said.
A river basin has two types of water.
“Blue water is water, such as irrigation water, that goes into the river channel and is taken out or put in ponds or lakes or what have you. It’s water that you can see. But the vast majority of water is what’s called green water, which is rainfall actually. It falls on landscapes. It’s used to produce food. It never actually gets into the river channel, but it’s really important. And it’s the major part of the total water balance in river basins,” he said.
The Basin Focal Research Project report says if farmers are to take advantage of that green water, they need inputs⁶, such as seeds, fertilizer and possibly mechanization. It says fertilizer is often very underused.
Making the most of river basins
Besides agriculture, river basins are also home to fisheries and livestock⁷.
“Think of the livestock system as three parts. First of all, you’re trying to find stuff for the animals to feed off. And then you’re trying to keep the animal healthy and keep it fed throughout its life because you don’t get anything out of it until it’s mature and it’s producing. And then you’re trying to sell the products. Now, there are three components⁸ there that need to be put together for farmers to really benefit,” said Cook.
The report says Africa has the biggest potential to increase food production. But there are large areas in Asia and Latin America where food production is currently 10 percent below their potential.
The 10 river basins studied include the Limpopo, Niger, Nile and Volta basins in Africa; the Andes and Sao Francisco in South America; and the Indus-Ganges, Karkheh, Mekong and Yellow river basins in Asia.
The 14th World Water Congress was held in Recife, Brazil from September 25 to the 29.

1 scarcity   

n.缺乏，不足，萧条

参考例句：

• The scarcity of skilled workers is worrying the government.熟练工人的缺乏困扰着政府。
• The scarcity of fruit was caused by the drought.水果供不应求是由于干旱造成的。

2 coordinator   

n.协调人

参考例句：

• The UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, headed by the Emergency Relief Coordinator, coordinates all UN emergency relief. 联合国人道主义事务协调厅在紧急救济协调员领导下，负责协调联合国的所有紧急救济工作。
• How am I supposed to find the client-relations coordinator? 我怎么才能找到客户关系协调员的办公室？

3 potent   

adj.强有力的，有权势的；有效力的

参考例句：

• The medicine had a potent effect on your disease.这药物对你的病疗效很大。
• We must account of his potent influence.我们必须考虑他的强有力的影响。

4 inefficiently   

adv.无效率地

参考例句：

• The small family farm is steeped in inefficiently and struggles just to survive. 小农场主陷于无效率的境况中，只为生存下去而苦苦挣扎。 来自辞典例句
• You can't afford to run businesses inefficiently in this day and age. 在现今，经营商店无能是不行的。 来自互联网

5 conversion   

n.转化，转换，转变

参考例句：

• He underwent quite a conversion.他彻底变了。
• Waste conversion is a part of the production process.废物处理是生产过程的一个组成部分。

6 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

7 livestock   

n.家畜，牲畜

参考例句：

• Both men and livestock are flourishing.人畜两旺。
• The heavy rains and flooding killed scores of livestock.暴雨和大水淹死了许多牲口。

8 components   

（机器、设备等的）构成要素，零件，成分； 成分( component的名词复数 )； [物理化学]组分； [数学]分量； （混合物的）组成部分

参考例句：

• the components of a machine 机器部件
• Our chemistry teacher often reduces a compound to its components in lab. 在实验室中化学老师常把化合物分解为各种成分。