提高粮食产量 减少食源性疾病

Jules Pretty: We want a kind of agriculture that’s both productive - produces a lot more. We need it and there are a billion people hungry today. But, at the same time, we’re running out of planet, and we can’t afford to be damaging the environmental resources that actually agriculture largely relies upon.

朱尔斯·普雷蒂表示: 我们理想中的农业要具备多产这个要素，即不断提高产量。如今，仍有10亿人食不果腹，因此我们更需要提高产量。然而，与此同时我们又在不断使地球资源干枯耗竭，更不要说能够以牺牲环境资源为前提，去满足农业所需。

Your listening to Jules Pretty. He is an agricultural expert at the University of Essex in the United Kingdom. He’s also an author of a late 2009 Royal Society report on the science of global agriculture.

今日请到的嘉宾是朱尔斯·普雷蒂先生。他是英国埃塞克斯大学的农业专家，同时他也参与了2009年年末就全球农业科技为议题的报告撰写工作。

Jules Pretty: What we’re saying is, look at the system first of all, and then see how you can manipulate it. If you can get your spiders and beetles to eat all your pests, then great. Do that first. If you can’t, then you might have to use a pesticide.

朱尔斯·普雷蒂说到：“我们想指出的是，首先要根据农业系统的情况才能确定如何熟练操控它。假如蜘蛛和甲虫能够帮你解决所有害虫，那很好。这是第一步。但如果不能确保这一点，你就会使用杀虫剂。”

He illustrated the point, with an example from East Africa.

通过一个东非的案例，朱尔斯进一步阐述了其观点。

Jules Pretty: Scientists working on the chemical signals that plants give off realized that if you had the right kind of grasses growing next to your maize fields, then those grasses repelled the pests that would normally come to eat your maize. So if you have a mixed system, and design it very carefully, you don’t need to use any pesticides to kill the pests.

朱尔斯·普雷蒂表示：致力于研究植物所释放出的化学信号的科学家们认为，如果玉蜀黍田地附近生长着牧草，那么那些牧草就可以帮你击退所有的害虫，防止其破坏玉蜀黍。因此如果你有双重系统并且合理设计的话，就没必要使用杀虫剂对付那些害虫了。

Jules Pretty said that global food production will have to increase by 50 to 100% in the next 30 to 40 years, in order to feed Earth’s growing population.

朱尔斯·普雷蒂表示，随着人口不断增长，在未来的30到40年间全球粮食产量必须增产50%至100%以满足人口需要。