VOA慢速英语:The Appeal of Urban Farming

Old properties and empty lots in cities and towns around the United States are finding new life as urban farms.
美国各地城镇的旧物业和空地因作为市区农场而发现了新生。

Eco City Farms in Edmonston, Maryland, is located near shopping centers, car repair shops and homes. The neighborhood is a working-class community. People do not have very much money, and they have limited access to fresh food in markets.
马里兰州埃德蒙斯顿市的生态城市农场位于商场、汽车修理店和住宅附近。附近是一个工薪阶层的社区。人们不是很富裕，在市场上获得新鲜食品的途径有限。

Over the past two years, the farm has attracted volunteers from the community like Marcy Clark. She schools her four children at home. On a recent day she brought them to Eco City Farms for a lesson.
在过去两年中，该农场已经吸引了社区中像Marcy Clark这样的志愿者。她在家教育自己的四个孩子。最近一天她把他们带到了生态城市农场上了一课。

MARCY CLARK: “It’s important that the children understand the connection between the food that they eat, the soil, the air, the pollution, how all this is connected to their well-being.”
MARCY CLARK: “让孩子们明白他们吃的食物与土壤，空气，污染直接的关联，并知道为何这些关系到他们的福祉。这些很重要。”

Her children harvested rows of spinach, mustard greens, lettuce, Swiss chard and carrots.  What did Hannah, Caleb, John and Alston think of the experience?
她的孩子收获了一行行菠菜、芥菜、生菜、瑞士甜菜和胡萝卜。Hannah，Caleb，John和Alston对这次经历有什么看法呢？

HANNAH CLARK: “You know, it’s good for the earth and it’s good for us.”
HANNAH CLARK：“你知道，它对地球和我们都有好处。”

CALEB CLARK: “It may not be like fun, fun, but it’s fun, ’cause you’re learning and not, like, writing something out on a piece of paper.”
CALEB CLARK：“它可能不像是很有趣，但它很有趣，因为你是在学习，与在纸上写什么东西之类的不一样。”

JOHN CLARK: “Basically instead of feeling down when I have to eat vegetables, I feel happy.
JOHN CLARK：“基本上，当我不得不吃蔬菜时，我并没有情绪低落，我感觉很快乐。”

ALSTON CLARK: “I like coming out here. You know, you connect with the earth, where your food comes from. You appreciate the food a little bit more.”
ALSTON CLARK：“我喜欢来这里。你知道，你与地球相连，而食物就来自这里。你更喜欢这些食物。”

Margaret Morgan-Hubbard started Eco City Farms. She thinks of it as a place where people can learn to live healthier lives.
Margaret Morgan-Hubbard开办了生态城市农场。她认为人们在这里可以学习更健康的生活方式。

MARGARET MORGAN-HUBBARD: “Our view is that what happens in a community, influences the culture of that community. So our idea was growing food in a community and showing that you can have farms even in urban areas, redefines what’s possible in that area, in that community and brings people together.”
MARGARET MORGAN-HUBBARD：“我的看法是，社区中所发生的会影响到该社区的文化。所以我们就想了个主意，就是在社区中种植食物，向人们表明，即使是在城市地区也可以有农场，重新定义该地区、该社区的可能性，将人们联系到一起。”

“Every piece of what we do here is a demonstration to show people everything about how to have a sustainable community," she says. That means not only farming food and raising chickens and bees, but improving the soil with compost made from food waste. Sixteen wooden bins are filled with worms. Their job is to eat the food waste and help make it into compost.
“我们所做的每一件事都是从各个方面向人们展示如何创建可持续社区。” 她说。这意味着不仅要种粮食、养鸡养蜂，还能用残留食物制成的肥料来改良土壤。16个木箱子装满了虫子，它们负责吃掉剩饭并转化为肥料。”

Benny Erez is a technical adviser at EcoCity Farms.
Benny Erez是生态城市农场的技术顾问。

BENNY EREZ: “When people come and look at this, obviously we show them a technique, a technique how to take food waste and close the circle and bring the food back from being food to composted and then use it on the farm, back to growing vegetables and back to people, and it’s basically closing the loop.”
BENNY EREZ：“当人们来到这里看到这个，很显然我们向他们展示了一种技术，一种获得食物残渣，并把食物残渣从食物转为堆肥，然后将他们用到农场中种植蔬菜，并变成蔬菜再次回到人们手里。基本上就是这样一个循环。”

Eco City Farms is an "off the grid" experimental operation. The farm gets its power not from the local electricity grid but from the sun with solar panels. In winter, the greenhouses are heated using a geothermal system. Buried tubes pump air at underground temperature -- thirteen degrees Celsius -- into the structures.
生态城市农场是一种“关闭电网”的试验性操作。农场用的电不是来自当地电网，而是用太阳能板发电。冬天，温室用地热系统来取暖。将管道埋在13℃的地下并连接到系统中。

Vegetables can be grown all year. So once a week, all winter long, neighbors like Chris Moss and her three children bicycle to the farm to pick up a share of the harvest. What does five-year-old Owen Moss think of it?
一年四季都可以种植蔬菜。因此，在整个漫长的冬天，邻居们像Chris Moss和三个孩子那样，骑自行车到农场帮助收获。5岁的Owen Moss对此有何看法呢？

OWEN MOSS: “I like eating the vegetables.”
OWEN MOSS：“我喜欢吃蔬菜。”