問題詳情


(B)Drylands account for 41% of the world’s land surface and are home to more than 2 billion people. Those numbers have heightened fears that climate change will exacerbate a chronic global food crisis. Nowhere is that more evident than in Qatar, a spit of land the size of Connecticut that has no rivers, no lakes and annual rainfall averaging 7.4 cm. And where Qatar goes，other water-poor countries in the region are likely to follow. Fahad bin Mohammed al-Attiya, executive chairman of Qatar’s National Food Security Program (QNFSP), is trying to increase Qatar’s food-supply independence. Instead of importing 90% of its food, he hopes Qatar will produce nearly half of it locally within the next 12 years.  al-Attiya envisions nothing less than the complete re-engineering of Qatar’s environment, from new desalination plants and an upending of how Qatar uses energy to greenhouses that cover square miles instead of acres and a social revolution that will elevate farmers. The project’s total budget is $30 billion，80% of which will come from private-sector investments. al-Attiya must also convince skeptical Qataris that a homegrown meal is essential for national security—a notion bolstered last fall when Saudi Arabia, one of Qatar’s biggest food suppliers，banned the export of poultry，potatoes and onions because of rising prices at home. With backing from Crown Prince Tamim bin Hamad al-thani, al-Attiya and his team sought out the best technologies to help Qatar achieve its goals. “We clearly needed more farms, more greenhouses, but what about water? So we desalinate seawater, but with what power? You don’t want more global warming by using fossil fuels，so it has to be solar,” al-Attiya says. Qatar’s few existing farms rely exclusively on wells that tap a technically depleted aquifer. Well water is free, so farmers until now have had little incentive to conserve. “We farm in Qatar as if we lived on the banks of the Nile，” complains al-Attiya. He envisions a future in which every drop of water reaches its intended target: the roots of a plant engineered for maximum productivity，grown in an environment regulated to mitigate the effects of summer heat. The infrastructure for Qatar’s future farming will be heavily subsidized. The desalinated water，piped in from new facilities on the coast, will still be free but carefully monitored. Farmers will be trained in the latest conservation techniques and regulated.  But desalination isn’t cheap economically or environmentally. Qatar’s scheme will producenearly 175 tons of salt per day. Qatar pumps the resulting brine back into the Gulf, and the long-term effects of that pollution are not yet clear. Still，there are limits to technology-enhanced self-sufficiency. Qatar will never realistically be able to grow enough wheat or rice and will always have to import meats and dairy. The government has so far bought land in Australia, leased property in Kenya and looked into South America for sugar, red meat，and grain. Becoming self-sufficient in farmers is perhaps even more difficult. Qatar is already dependent on foreign labor for 94% of its workforce. “With the world’s population expected to rise by a third over the next 20 years and demands for food and energy rising by half, investing in food-security technology is not necessarily a gamble，’’ says Clemens Breisinger of the International Food Policy Research Institute. However, he adds，“There might be smarter ways to invest that money than trying to green the desert.”  al-Attiya brushed those concerns aside. The project’s budget has already been approved by the government，which would otherwise have to subsidize imported food. “We have a strategic water reserve，we have mitigated our exposure to global risks, and we have intellectual property development and technology that can be exported elsewhere, profitably，” says al-Attiya. He and his team believe if they can succeed with the project, everything will change.
34. What’s the best title of the passage?
(A) An audacious plan that defies the limits of arid lands.
(B) An agricultural renaissance that boasts green drainage treatment.
(C) An initiative to replenish the depleted aquifers.
(D) A wake-up call for those who crave for alternative energy.

參考答案

答案：A
難度：適中0.5
統計：A(6),B(3),C(2),D(0),E(0)

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