中英双语新闻-猪肉价格飞涨，中国限制用玉米产乙醇

As pork prices soar, Chinese put brakes on corn for ethanol
随着猪肉价格飞涨，中国限制用玉米产乙醇

With a famine less than 50 years in its past, China remains sensitive about using food for fuel.
由于40多年前经历过的饥荒，中国对粮食换能源问题一直敏感

Pricey pork: Chinese premier Wen Jiabao (c.) raised attention to China’s soaring pork prices with a visit last weekend to Xi’an, about 750 miles southwest of Beijing.

By Peter Ford | Staff writer of The Christian Science Monitor

Beijing - Ethanol production has put the Chinese government in an unpleasant bind, as fears rise that the environmentally friendly gasoline additive is also fueling politically dangerous increases in the price of food – particularly pork, a key staple.
乙醇生产已经使中国政府陷入困境，他们越来越担心环保的乙醇汽油会促使粮食-尤其是猪肉的涨价。

With the ethanol industry gobbling up a growing share of China's corn harvest, authorities have stomped on the brakes to slow what one official report calls "blind" investment in distilleries.
由于乙醇生产在中国玉米收获中占据越来越大的份额，政府对在官方报告中描述为盲目投资的乙醇业踩刹车。

"China cannot sacrifice food security for energy: that seems to be the majority view in the government now," says Zhang Zhongjun, deputy head of the Beijing bureau of the United Nations' Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO).
联合国粮农组织驻北京办事处的张忠军说：“中国不能为能源牺牲粮食安全，这是目前政府大多数人的观点。”

Prime Minister Wen Jiabao offered the latest sign of government concern when he made a highly publicized visit last weekend to a piggery and a meat market in Xi'an, about 750 miles southwest of Beijing. The price of pork has gone up by 29 percent over the past year and the price of live pigs by 71 percent, according to the Agriculture Ministry.
总理温家宝最近高调访问了西安的一家养猪场和肉市场，表明了政府的关注。农业部说，在过去一年里，猪肉价格上涨了29%，生猪价格上涨71%。

In a country where people eat more pork than anywhere else in the world except Germany, that jump in the price of a staple has dominated recent headlines and sparked grumbling.
除德国人外，中国人每年食用的猪肉比世界其他国家都多。猪肉价格飞涨占据了最近的头条并引发大量抱怨声。

"The government is going all out to ensure the supply of pork and keep it affordable," Mr. Wen reassured a supermarket crowd, according to the Xinhua state news agency.
新华社报道称，温总理在超市向人们保证：“政府正全力保证猪肉供应，并保证大家买得起。”

"The Chinese government is very sensitive to this," says Hu Xingdou, a political analyst at the Beijing Institute of Technology. "They are afraid that rising prices will affect social stability. They have not forgotten that inflation was an important reason for people to get involved in the events of 1989," when students led massive protests in Tiananmen Square.
北京理工大学的政治分析家胡星斗说：“中国政府对此问题很敏感，担心会影响社会稳定。他们没有忘记，粮食暴涨正是1989年天安门学生抗议运动的重要原因之一。”

Industry analysts blame the price rises partly on a shortage of pigs in the wake of outbreaks of "blue-ear disease" around China.
行业分析家认为猪肉飞涨的部分原因是蓝耳病在中国暴发造成生猪供应短缺。

Though the authorities have publicly admitted to only 300 deaths, they have privately reported 100,000 mortalities to international agencies, and even that figure is not credible, say experts.
专家说中国官方只承认300头猪死亡，但他们向国际组织秘密报告的死亡率是十万头，就算是这个数字也并不可靠。

"Several million pigs may have died, we just don't know," says one international expert familiar with the situation. Chinese farmers raised 465 million pigs last year.
一位了解情况的国际专家说：“几百万头猪死了，我们只是不知道。”中国去年共养猪4.65亿头。

At the root of the problem, though, say agriculture analysts, is the rising cost of pig feed, which is comprised mostly of corn. Despite a bumper crop last year, corn prices have risen by nearly 30 percent over the past nine months on the Dalian Commodities Exchange.
农业分析家说，问题根源在于猪饲料价格飞涨，尤其是玉米。尽管去年玉米丰收，大连商品交易所的玉米价格在过去9个月里上涨了近30%。

That, says Luo Yunbo, head of the food-science department at China Agriculture University, is because "corn is being sought for industrial purposes, such as ethanol, not just agricultural use."
中国农业大学的罗教授称，这是因为玉米被用于工业用途，比如乙醇生产。

Ethanol has been trumpeted as the alternative fuel of the future, offering cleaner energy and new opportunities for farmers in developing countries.
乙醇被鼓吹为未来的新燃料，提供清洁能源并为发展中国家的农民新的机遇。

But critics around the world have recently begun to question the unconsidered effects of large-scale ethanol production, such as increasing competition for human or animal food supplies. And in China, where an estimated 30 million people died in a famine less than 50 years ago, many have reservations about using food for fuel.
世界各地的批评者最近开始对大规模乙醇生产造成的影响提出质疑，比如加剧人类食品或者动物饲料供应的紧张情况。这个问题以前从未引起重视。中国在40多年前的饥荒中死亡约三千万人，很多人对粮食换燃料持保守态度。

The industrial use of corn nearly doubled between 2001 and 2005, to 23 million tons, according to a study released last December by the National Development and Reform Committee, China's chief economic planning agency. That represented 16.5 percent of the corn harvest in 2005.
中国发改委去年12月公布的报告表明，2005年用于工业的玉米量是2001年的两倍，达到2300万吨，占玉米产量的16.5%。

The result, said the report, is a shortage of corn. "Corn supplies to the processing industry compete with supply for [animal] feed, which impacts the development of stock-breeding."
报告称，玉米加工业影响了饲料供应，进而影响了畜牧业发展。

But "China is different," argues the FAO's Mr. Zhang. "America and Brazil have huge land areas and plenty of water," he points out. "China has shortages of water and arable land, and it is a deficit country," importing more grain than it exports.
粮农组织（FAO）张忠军说：“中国的情况特殊。美国和巴西有富裕的耕地和水资源，但是中国匮乏。中国是个粮食进口国。”

In the ongoing debate among Chinese leaders and scholars about the value of ethanol and biofuels, "more and more people think that China's potential is not so big, that China cannot use food for fuel because food security is more important than energy and because food is politically very important," Zhang says.
张忠军说：“中国的领导人和学者们正就乙醇和生物燃料的生产价值进行辩论，越来越多的人认为中国不能用粮食生产燃料，因为粮食安全比能源更重要，粮食的政治意义重大。”

Such arguments convinced the government to slap new controls on the corn-processing industry late last December, suspending all investment projects still in the pipeline and insisting that all future ethanol projects should apply for approval from state planning agencies.
这种观点使政府对玉米加工业采取了新的控制措施，叫停所有在建项目，今后所有乙醇项目必须经国家计划审批。

The continuing rise in corn prices since the beginning of this year suggests that the central government is having its usual difficulty in controlling developments in China's provinces. But the crisis has not deterred the authorities from pursuing other ethanol distilling projects and biofuel experiments.
从年初开始的玉米价格持续上涨表明，中央政府在控制各省发展中遭遇惯有的阻力。但政府并未因这场危机停止推进另一项乙醇生产项目和生物燃料试验。

A state-owned grain and oils conglomerate will launch a pilot project later this year to process cassava – a starchy tuber that is not considered a food in China – into ethanol. Plans are also under way to plant tens of thousands of acres of jatropha – also inedible and grown in wastelands – by the end of the decade.
一家国有粮油联合企业今年将进行一项项目试点——用木薯产乙醇。木薯在中国不是粮食。另一项计划也在进行中：在2010年前种植万亩麻疯树jatropha，麻疯树不可食用，并可种植于荒地。

One principle must rule the development of China's alternative fuel industry, the National Development and Reform Committee insists: "a guarantee that foodgrains are not the main source" of its raw materials.
发改委称，在中国新燃料发展中必须坚持一项原则：不使用粮食作为主要原材料。

[本帖最后由 wz9th 于 2007-6-4 22:35 编辑]