2016年06月六级第2套仔细阅读 Passage 1 原文翻译及答案解析

Facing water shortages and escalating fertilizer costs, farmers in developing countries are using raw sewage (下水道污水) to irrigate and fertilize nearly 49 million acres of cropland, according to a new report— and it may not be a bad thing.

根据一份新报告，面对水资源短缺和化肥成本上升，发展中国家的农民正在使用未经处理的污水（下水道污水）来灌溉和施肥近4900万英亩的农田，而这可能并非坏事。

While the practice carries serious health risks for many, those dangers are outweighed by the social and economic gains for poor urban farmers and consumers who need affordable food.

虽然这种做法对许多人带来严重的健康风险，但对于需要负担得起食物的贫困城市农民和消费者来说，社会和经济收益超过了这些危险。

"There is a large potential for waste water agriculture to both help and hurt great numbers of urban consumers," said Liqa Raschid-Sally, who led the study.

领导这项研究的利卡·拉希德-萨利说：“废水农业既有潜力帮助大量城市消费者，也可能伤害他们。”

The report focused on poor urban areas, where farms in or near cities supply relatively inexpensive food. Most of these operations draw irrigation water from local rivers or lakes. Unlike developed cities, however, these areas lack advanced water-treatment facilities, and rivers effectively become sewers(下水道).

报告重点关注贫困城市地区，这些地区位于城市内或附近的农场提供相对便宜的食物。大多数这些农场从当地河流或湖泊抽取灌溉用水。然而，与发达城市不同，这些地区缺乏先进的水处理设施，河流实际上变成了下水道。

When this water is used for agricultural irrigation, farmers risk absorbing disease-causing bacteria, as do consumers who eat the produce raw and unwashed. Nearly 2.2 million people die each year because of diarrhea-related (与腹泻相关的) diseases, according to WHO statistics. More than 80% of those cases can be attributed to contact with contaminated water and a lack of proper sanitation. But Pay Drechsel, an environmental scientist, argues that the social and economic benefits of using untreated human waste to grow food outweigh the health risks.

当这种水用于农业灌溉时，农民有吸收致病细菌的风险，消费者食用未清洗的农产品也是如此。根据世界卫生组织的统计数据，每年有近220万人死于与腹泻相关的疾病。超过80%的病例可归因于接触受污染的水和缺乏适当的卫生设施。但环境科学家佩·德雷舍尔认为，使用未经处理的人类粪便种植食物的社会和经济效益超过了健康风险。

Those dangers can be addressed with farmer and consumer education, he said, while the free water and nutrients from human waste can help urban farmers in developing countries to escape poverty.

他说，这些危险可以通过农民和消费者教育来应对，而来自人类粪便的免费水和营养物质可以帮助发展中国家的城市农民摆脱贫困。

Agriculture is a water-intensive business, accounting for nearly 70% of global fresh water consumption.

农业是一个用水密集型行业，占全球淡水消耗量的近70%。

In poor, dry regions, untreated waste water is the only viable irrigation source to keep farmers in business. In some cases, water is so scarce that farmers break open sewage pipes transporting waste to local rivers.

在贫困、干旱地区，未经处理的废水是维持农民生计的唯一可行灌溉水源。在某些情况下，水资源如此稀缺，以至于农民甚至会破坏输送废物到当地河流的污水管道。

Irrigation is the primary agricultural use of human waste in the developing world. But frequently untreated human waste harvested from lavatories is delivered to farms and spread as fertilizer.

在发展中国家，人类粪便的主要农业用途是灌溉。但经常有未经处理的人类粪便从厕所收集，运送到农场并作为肥料施用。

In most cases, the human waste is used on grain crops, which are eventually cooked, minimizing the risk of transmitting water-borne diseases. With fertilizer prices jumping nearly 50% per metric ton over the last year in some places, human waste is an attractive, and often necessary, alternative.

在大多数情况下，人类粪便用于谷物作物，这些作物最终会被烹饪，从而最大限度地降低传播水源性疾病的风险。由于过去一年中某些地方化肥价格每公吨上涨了近50%，人类粪便成为一个有吸引力且往往必要的替代品。

In cases where sewage mud is used, expensive chemical fertilizer use can be avoided. The mud contains the same critical nutrients.

在使用污水泥浆的情况下，可以避免使用昂贵的化学肥料。这种泥浆含有相同的必需营养物质。

"Overly strict standards often James Bartram, a WHO water-health expert, said. We need to accept that fact across much of the planet, so waste with little or no treatment will be used in agriculture for good reason."

“过于严格的标准往往阻碍进步，”世界卫生组织水健康专家詹姆斯·巴特拉姆说。“我们需要在地球上大部分地区接受这一事实，因此，未经处理或仅经简单处理的废物将在农业中被合理使用。”