[2009.11.17]How to feed the world如何养活世界Nov 19th 2009From The Economist print editionBusiness as usual will not do it一切照旧已不再可行IN 1974 Henry Kissinger, then America’s secretary of state, told the first world food conference in Rome that no child would go to bed hungry within ten years. Just over 35 years later, in the week of another United Nations food summit in Rome, 1 billion people will go to bed hungry.1974年，在罗马举行的第一届世界粮食会议上，当时的美国国务卿亨利•基辛格宣称10年内将没有小孩再饿着肚子入睡。
而35年之后的罗马，在又一届联合国粮食峰会在罗马召开的这一周内，仍有10亿人饿着肚子上床睡觉。
This failure, already dreadful, may soon get worse. None of the underlying agricultural problems which produced a spike in food prices in 2007-08 and increased the number of hungry people has gone away. Between now and 2050 the world’s populat ion will rise by a third, but demand for agricultural goods will rise by 70% and demand for meat will double. These increases are in a sense good news in that they are a result of rising wealth in poor and middle-income countries. But they will have to happen without farmers clearing large amounts of new land (there is some scope for expansion, but not much) or using up lots more water (in parts of the world, water supplies are stretched to their limit or beyond). Moreover, they will take place while farmers also wrestle with the consequences of climate change, which, on balance, will do more harm than good to farmland round the world.这样的失败虽已甚为可怕，但很快将会变得更糟。
现存的农业问题推动了2007-08年粮食价格的上涨，使饥饿人数有所增加，而这些问题无一得到解决。
现在至2050年间，世界人口将增长1/3，但农产品需求将上涨70%，而肉类需求更将翻番。
这些增长在一定意义上是个好消息，因为这是中低收入国家财富增长的结果。
但是伴随这些增长的却是一些不容乐观的景象：农民无法清理出大量的新地（可耕地有扩大的空间，但并不多），更多的水资源会被耗尽（在世界某些地方，供水量已至其极限甚至超过了极限）。
此外，与此同时农民还需应对气候变化造成的影响。
总的来说，气候变化对其全球的耕地来说将是弊大于利的。
It may be too late to avoid another bout of price rises. Despite a global recession and the largest grain harvest on record in 2008, food prices are heading up again. Still, countries have a brief window of opportunity in which to set long-term policy goals without being distracted by panic measures. They need to do two things: invest in the productive capacity of agriculture and improve the operation of food markets.或许想避免下一轮的价格上涨为时已晚。
尽管全球经济衰退，而2008年收获了有记录以来的最大丰收，但食物价格仍再次上扬。
然而，各国仍存在一丝机会，能够在避免恐慌措施的同时，制定长期政策目标。
他们要做两件事：投资增加农业生产能力，改善食物市场运作方式。
Governments have done one but not the other. Over the past year investment has risen faster than anyone expected. But distrust of markets and a reaction against farm trade are growing. Unless governments restrain those impulses, they will undermine the gains from rising investment.政府仅为其一而未做其二。
过去的一年间，投资增速快于任何人预期。
但市场的不信任及对农产品贸易的抵制正在增加。
除非政府能够抑制这股潮流，否则增加的投资收益将为其所破坏。
The quarter-century slumber1/4世纪的沉睡For most of the past 25 years, investment in agriculture has declined relentlessly. In 2005 most developing countries were investing only around 5% of public revenues in farming. The share of Western aid going to agriculture fell by around three-quarters between 1980 and 2006. This disinvestment laid waste to productivity. During the Green Revolution of the 1960s, staple-crop yields were rising by 3-6% a year. Now they are rising by only 1-2% a year; in poor countries, yields are flat.过去25年间的大多时候，农业投资都在无情下跌。
2005年，多数发展中国家公共收入中仅有5%用于投资农业。
西方对农业的援助比例，自1980至2006年间降低了近3/4。
投资缩水导致产能的浪费。
在20世纪60年代绿色革命时期，大宗作物单产一年便提高了3-6%。
而现在一年仅提升1-2%。
在贫困国家，产量并未提高。
Fortunately, the food-price spike of 2007-08 shocked governments out of their quarter-century of neglect. The World Bank and many rich countries have doubled the money they put into poor countries’ farming. In the poor countries themselves, agriculture has gone from being a sideshow for the government—something the minister of agriculture does—into its main event, which everyone needs to worry about. This is as it should be: farming is far and away the single most important economic activity in most poor places.幸运的是，2007-08年间，食物价格的上涨将政府从1/4世纪中的怠惰中惊醒。
世界银行及许多富裕国家成倍增加了其对贫困国家农业的投资力度。
而对贫困国家自身，农业也不再是场仅有农业部长参与的余兴节目，而成为人人都需思考的头等大事。
这才是他所应该成为的样子：农业生产无疑是贫困地区唯一首要的经济活动。
Some of the new splurge of public money is going on safety-net programmes for poor farmers, which are justified on anti-poverty grounds: three-quarters of the world’s poorest live in rural areas. But the money will pay dividends in the long run only if it improves farmers’ access to market. Lack of reliable markets is the biggest barrier to rural development, since without them farmers have little incentive to grow more. So the increase in rural road-building is welcome, asare measures to improve the operations of local markets by (for instance) spreading price information and building grain stores. There is also a case for temporarily subsidising better seeds and fertilisers in places where local markets are failing to provide them: this is an example of correcting market failure.挥霍公款的新作之一便是进行针对贫农的安全网计划。