indeed是什么意思2013年6月英语六级真题阅读第三套

2021年1月26日发(作者：副卡)
2013
年
6
月第三套
PART TWO
Norman Borlaug: 'Father of the Green Revolution'

Few people have quietly changed the world for the better more than this rural lad from
the midwestern state of Iowa in the United States. The man in focus is Norman Borlaug,
the Father of the 'Green Revolution', who died on September 12, 2009 at age 95.
Norman Borlaug spent most of his 60 working years in the farmlands of Mexico, South
Asia and later in Africa, fighting world hunger, and saving by some estimates up to a
billion lives in the process. An achievement, fit for a Nobel Peace Prize.
Early Years


grandson of Norwegian immigrants to the United States, Borlaug was born in 1914 and
grew up on a small farm in the northeastern corner of Iowa in a town called Cresco. His
family had a 40-
hectare
(
公顷
) farm on which they grew wheat,
maize
(
玉米
) and hay
and raised pigs and cattle. Norman spent most of his time from age 7-17 on the farm,
even as he attended a one- room, one-teacher school at New Oregon in Howard
County.
Borlaug didn't have money to go to college. But through a Great Depression
eraprogramme, known as the National Youth Administration, Borlaug was able to enroll
in the University of Minnesota at Minneapolis to study forestry. He excelled in studies
and received his Ph.D. in plant
pathology
(
病理学
) and genetics in 1942. From 1942 to
1944, Borlaug was employed as a microbiologist at DuPont in Wilmington. However,
following the December 7, 1941 attack on Pearl Harbor, Borlaug tried to join the
military, but was rejected under wartime labour regulations.
In Mexico

In 1944, many experts warned of mass starvation in developing nations where
populations were expanding faster than crop production. Borlaug began work at a
Rockefeller Foundation-funded project in Mexico to increase wheat production by
developing higher-yielding varieties of the crop. It involved research in genetics, plant
breeding, plant pathology,
entomology
(
昆虫学
) ,
agronomy
(
农艺学
) , soil science, and
cereal technology. The goal of the project was to boost wheat production in Mexico,
which at the time was importing a large portion of its grain.
Borlaug said that his first couple of years in Mexico were difficult. He lacked trained
scientists and equipment. Native farmers were hostile towards the wheat programme
because of serious crop losses from 1939 to 1941 due to stem rust.
Wheat varieties that Borlaug worked with had tall, thin stalks. While taller wheat
competed better for sunlight, they had a tendency to collapse under the weight of extra
grain - a trait called lodging. To overcome this, Borlaug worked on breeding wheat with
shorter and stronger stalks, which could hold on larger seed heads. Borlaug's new
semi-dwarf, disease-resistant varieties, called Pitic 62 and Penjamo 62, changed the
potential yield of Mexican wheat dramatically. By 1963 wheat production in Mexico
stood six times more than that of 1944.
Green Revolution in India

During the 1960s, South Asia experienced severe drought condition and India had
been importing wheat on a large scale from the United States. Borlaug came to India in
1963 along with Dr. Robert Anderson to duplicate his Mexican success in the sub-
continent. The experiments began with planting a few of the high-yielding variety
strains in the fields of the Indian Agricultural Research Institute at Pusa in New Delhi,
under the supervision of Dr. M. S. Swaminathan. These strains were subsequently
planted in test plots at Ludhiana, Pantnagar, Kanpur, Pune and Indore. The results
were promising, but large-scale success, however, was not instant. Cultural opposition
to new agricultural techniques initially prevented Borlaug from going ahead with
planting of new wheat strains in India. By 1965, when the drought situation turned
alarming, the Government took the lead and allowed wheat revolution to move forward.
By employing agricultural techniques he developed in Mexico, Borlaug was able to
nearly double South Asian wheat harvests between 1965 and 1970.
India subsequently made a huge commitment to Mexican wheat, importing some
18000 tonnes of seed. By 1968, it was clear that the Indian wheat harvest was nothing
short of revolutionary. It was so productive that there was a shortage of labour to
harvest it, of bull carts to haul it to the
threshing floor
(
打谷场
) , of
jute
(
麻黄
) bags to
store it. Local governments in some areas were forced to shut down schools
temporarily to use them as store houses.
United Nation's Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) observed that in 40 years
between 1961 and 2001,
more than 1 billion. At the same time, it nearly tripled its grain production from 87
million tonnes to 231 million tonnes. It accomplished this feat while increasing
cultivated grain
acreage
(
土地面积
) a mere 8 percent.
It was in India that Norman Borlaug's work was described as the 'Green Revolution.'
In Africa

Africa suffered widespread hunger and starvation through the 70s and 80s. Food and
aid poured in from most developed countries into the continent, but thanks to the
absence of efficient distribution system, the hungry remained empty-stomach. The then
Chairman of the Nippon Foundation, Ryoichi Sasakawa wondered why the methods
used in Mexico and India were not extended to Africa. He called up Norman Borlaug.
now leading a semi-retired life, for help. He managed to convince Borlaug to help with
his new effort and subsequently founded the Sasakawa Africa Association. Borlaug
later recalled,
growing'
The success in Africa was not as spectacular as it was in India or Mexico. Those
elements that allowed Borlaug's projects to succeed, such as well-organized
economies and transportation and irrigation systems, were severely lacking throughout
Africa. Because of this, Borlaug's initial projects were restricted to developed regions of
the continent. Nevertheless, yields of maize,
sorghum
(
高粱
) and wheat doubled
between 1983 and 1985.
Nobel Prize

For his contributions to the world food supply, Borlaug was awarded the Nobel Peace
Prize in 1970. Norwegian officials notified his wife in Mexico City at 4:00 a. m., but
Borlaug had already left for the test fields in the Toluca valley, about 65 km west of
Mexico City. A
chauffeur
(
司机
) took her to the fields to inform her husband. In his
acceptance speech, Borlaug said,
adequate food for all mankind. Food is the moral right of all who are born into this
world. Yet, 50 percent of the world population goes hungry.
Green Revolution vs Environmentalists
Borlaug's advocacy of intensive high-yield agriculture came under severe criticism from
environmentalists in recent years. His work faced environmental and socio- economic
criticisms, including charges that his methods have created dependence on
monoculture crops, unsustainable farming practices, heavy indebtedness among
subsistence farmers, and high levels of cancer among those who work with agriculture
chemicals. There are also concerns about the long-term sustainability of fanning
practices encouraged by the Green Revolution in both the developed and the
developing world.
In India, the Green Revolution is blamed for the destruction of Indian crop diversity,
drought vulnerability, dependence on agro-chemicals that poison soils but reap large-
scale benefits mostly to the American multi-national corporations. What these critics
overwhelmingly advocate is a global movement towards
farming practices that avoid using chemicals and high technology in favour of natural
fertilizers, cultivation and pest-control programmes.
注意：此部分试题请在答题卡
1
上作答。

1. Norman Borlaug won a Nobel Prize for _______.
A) his remarkable achievements in plant genetics
B) his spectacular contribution to safeguarding world peace
C) his great success in raising Africa's food production
D) his enduring efforts in combating world hunger
2. How did Borlaug's wheat programme go during his first couple of years in Mexico?
A) It met with resistance. B) It was well received.
C) It achieved unexpected progress. D) It succeeded though with difficulty.
3. What characterised Borlaug's Pitic 62 and Penjamo 62?
A) Superior ability to breed new high-yielding varieties.
B) Short and strong stems and resistance to diseases.
C) Tall and thin stems and extremely large seed heads.
D) Tendency to collapse under the; weight of extra grain.
4. What initially prevented Borlaug from achieving large-scale success in India?
A) Farmers' rejection of his planting techniques.
B) The persistent drought throughout the country.
C) Difficulty in importing high-yielding wheat seeds.
D) The local government's slowness in taking action.
5. According to United Nation's Food and Agriculture Organization, in 40 yearsbetween
1961 and 2001 India's grain production ________.
A) almost doubled B) went up by 8 percent
C) increased nearly three times D) rose from 452 million to 1 billion tonnes