-
还算公道——中美洲咖啡与“啡农”
Fair
enough
（还算公道）
MAKING good
coffee is
not a simple
business. Coffee bushes
must
be grown
in
shade
—
neither too much, nor
too little. A hillside is
best
—
but it
mustn't be too
s______①.
After three years,
the bushes will start to
produce
bright-
red coffee “cherries”, which
a
re picked, processed to
remove
the
pulp,
and
spread
out
to
dry
for
days,
ideally
on
concrete.
They
are
m_______②
again
to
separate
the
bean,
which
needs
to
rest,
preferably
for
a
few
months.
（
1
）
Only
then
can
it
be
roasted,
ground
and
brewed
into
the stuff
that dreams are ★quelled with[1].
In Mexico and
parts of Central America, as in Colombia and Peru
further
south
but
not
in
Brazil,
most
coffee
farmers
are
smallholders.
（
2<
/p>
）
They
found
it
especially
hard
to
deal
with
the
recent
★slump[2]
in
the
coffee
price. The price has
since recovered: the benchmark price applied to
m________③
coffee now ranges
from $$1.11 to $$1.14 per pound. That is
roughly double its
★rock
-bottom[3] level of August 2002.
But the
v_________④
of their
income makes it
hard for
farmers to
invest
to sustain
their crop, says Fernando Celis of the Mexican
National
Organisation of Coffee
Growers. The slump forced many small farmers to
switch to other crops, or migrate to
cities. Mexico's exports of coffee
are
less than half of what they were six years ago.
（
3
）
For
farmers, one way out of this dilemma is to
decouple the price
they are paid from
the international commodities markets. This is the
a_______⑤
of Fairtrade, a
London-based organisation which certifies
products as “responsibly”
sourced.
Fairtrade determines at what
price
farmers make what it considers a
reasonable profit. Its current
calculation
is
that
the
appropriate
figure
is
10%
above
the
market
price.
W________⑥,
sales of Fairtrade-certified coffee have increased
from
$$22.5m per year to $$87m per year
since 1998. This is still only a tiny
fraction of the overall world coffee
trade, worth $$10 billion annually.
But
there
are
plenty
of
other
★niche
markets[4]
for
high
-quality
coffee.
Some small producers
can
c_________⑦
more by
marketing their coffee as
organic
—
a
switch
which
takes
five
years
or
so
—or
“bird
-
friendly” <
/p>
（
4
）
beca
use, unlike large, mechanised plantations, they
have retained shade
trees.
Starbucks, the Seattle-based coffee-bar
c________⑧,
says it uses a
similar formula to that
of
Fairtrade in
buying its coffee.
All is bought
at
a
“fair
price”,
says
Peter
Torrebiarte,
who
manages
Starbucks'
buying
operation in Costa
Rica.
（
5
）
Some niches can be large. Only 6%
of world
o________⑨
is of
top
quality, but in Costa Rica and
Guatemala the figure rises to 60%, says
Mr Torrebiarte. Starbucks bought 37% of
Costa Rica's entire coffee crop
in
the
2004-05
season,
according
to
Adolfo
Lizano
of
the
country's
coffee
institute.
Mexico lags behind its
neighbours in extracting higher prices. But 95%
of the coffee in Mexico is
arabica
—
the type of bean
demanded by
connoisseurs
—
rather
than
lower-
grade
robusta.
Almost
all
of
it
is
grown
at
a________⑩,
which also
improves quality. So Mexico, too, has the
potential
to
compete on
quality
rather
than
price.
Only
by
following
the
path
forged
by
Costa
Rica
and
Guatemala,
says
Mr
Celis,
can
Mexico's
coffee
growers
survive
in
the
world
market.
（
6
）
For
their
part,
discerning
coffee
drinkers
can
satisfy their
palate
and
their
conscience
at
the
same
time.
[QUIZ]
（下列
2
题任选其一即可，认真答题者即给予
80
沪元奖励。不答题仅
提问者，亦可得到至少
20<
/p>
沪元奖励）
1.
根据空白后括号里面的词性提示和英文释义以及首字母，填入合适
的单词（注意单词
形式变化）。
①s______(adj. rising
or falling at a sharp angle)
②m______（
v. to crush grain,
pepper, etc into flour
）
③m_______（
adj. not very
strong or hot-tasting
）
④v_________（
n. likelihood to
change suddenly and unexpectedly or
suddenly become violent or
angry
）
⑤a_______（
n. something you
hope to achieve by doing
something
）
⑥W_
_______
（
adj.
everywhere in the world
）
⑦c_________ （
v. to ask
someone for a particular amount of money for
something you are
selling
）
⑧c________（
n. a number of
shops, hotels, cinemas etc owned or managed
by the same company or
person
）
⑨o________（
n.
the
amount
of
goods
or
work
produced
by
a
person,
machine,
factory etc
< br>；
production
）
⑩a________（
n. the height of
an object or place above the
sea
）
2.
将文中划线部分英语翻译成汉语：
[NOTES](LONGMAN)
[1] quell
[transitive] formal
1to
end
a
situation
in
which
people
are
behaving
violently
or
protesting,
especially by using force [= put down]
镇压
quell the
violence/disturbance/riot etc
Police
used live ammunition to quell the disturbances.
2 literary to reduce or
stop
unpleasant feelings
such as
fear, doubt, or
worry:
压制，压抑，平息
'Jerry?'
she called, trying to quell the panic inside her.
[2] slump [countable,
usually singular]
1
a
sudden
decrease
in
prices,
sales,
profits
etc
（价格、销售、利润等）
骤降
slump in
a slump in car
sales
2
a
period
when
there
is
a
reduction
in
business
and
many
people
lose
their
jobs [≠ boom]: 衰退时期
The war was followed by an economic
slump.
a worldwide slump