食物越來越充足，為什么人們不斷警告短缺?

食物越來越充足，為什么人們不斷警告短缺?

There's a common warning about our planet's future: the risk of food shortages.

關(guān)于我們的星球的未來，有一個共同的警告:食物短缺的風(fēng)險。

"We've got a growing world and a hungry world. We need to make sure we do our part in helping feed that hungry world," said Kip Tom, a farmer from Indiana who's currently the U.S. ambassador to the UN's Food and Agriculture Organization.

“我們有一個不斷發(fā)展的世界和一個饑餓的世界。來自印第安納州的農(nóng)民、現(xiàn)任美國駐聯(lián)合國糧農(nóng)組織大使基普·湯姆表示:“我們需要確保我們盡自己的一份力量幫助這個饑餓的世界獲得糧食。”

"That is totally the mantra," says Catherine Kling, an economist at Cornell University. "I'll bet I've been to 50 talks in the last five, 10 years where the beginning is, 'We have to feed 9 billion people by 2050. This is a crisis situation.' The word 'crisis' gets used regularly."

“這完全是咒語，”康奈爾大學(xué)的經(jīng)濟學(xué)家凱瑟琳·克林說。“我敢打賭，在過去的5年、10年里，我參加了50次談話，談話的開頭都是‘到2050年，我們必須養(yǎng)活90億人’。這是一個危機局勢。‘危機’這個詞經(jīng)常被用到。”

But, in fact, the long-term trend, for more than a century, has been toward ever more abundant food, and declining prices.

但事實上，一個多世紀(jì)以來的長期趨勢是，食物越來越豐富，價格不斷下降。

To be sure, every once in a while, it really does seem like a crisis. It certainly did in 2008. Tom Hertel, a economist at Purdue University, remembers it well. "This was right in the thick of the biofuel-driven madness," Hertel says, when government policies drove a surge in demand for corn to make ethanol. Rice and wheat prices were spiking for other reasons.

可以肯定的是，每隔一段時間，它看起來確實像一場危機。2008年確實如此。普渡大學(xué)的經(jīng)濟學(xué)家湯姆•赫特爾對它記憶猶新。赫特爾說:“當(dāng)時正是生物燃料驅(qū)動的瘋狂時期”，當(dāng)時政府的政策推動了用于制造乙醇的玉米需求的激增。大米和小麥價格飆升還有其他原因。

"People were really panicking," he says. Some economists thought that consumers would always experience chronic food shortages and high prices.

“人們真的很恐慌，”他說。一些經(jīng)濟學(xué)家認(rèn)為，消費者將永遠(yuǎn)經(jīng)歷長期的食品短缺和高價格。

Hertel didn't believe it, though. He and his colleagues have a computer model of long-term trends that drive supply and demand for global food, and their model predicted plenty of food, with lower prices.

但赫特爾并不相信。他和他的同事們有一個計算機模型，可以預(yù)測驅(qū)動全球糧食供求的長期趨勢，他們的模型預(yù)測了大量的糧食，價格更低。

"So we wrote this paper, 'Debunking the New Normal,' and it was very unpopular," he recalls. "In fact, we weren't able to publish it!"

“所以我們寫了這篇論文，‘揭穿新常態(tài)’，它非常不受歡迎，”他回憶道事實上，我們沒能出版它!”

Eventually, he did find a journal to publish it. And he turned out to be right. Prices soon came back down.

最終，他找到了一本雜志發(fā)表了這篇文章。結(jié)果證明他是對的。價格很快回落。

And in fact, the long-term trend, for more than a century, has been toward ever more abundant food, and declining prices. From 1900 to 2000, Hertel says, the number of people in the world quadrupled, yet food prices at the end of the century were only one-third of their starting level.

事實上，一個多世紀(jì)以來的長期趨勢是，食物越來越豐富，價格不斷下降。赫特爾說，從1900年到2000年，世界人口數(shù)量翻了兩番，但本世紀(jì)末的食品價格只有開始水平的三分之一。

It's true, of course, that millions of people in the world are hungry or malnourished. But Hertel and Kling say the main reason is that people lack the money to buy food, or because of war and political oppression. Reducing hunger requires addressing poverty and conflict, not just growing more food.

當(dāng)然，世界上有數(shù)百萬人正在挨餓或營養(yǎng)不良，這是事實。但赫特爾和金克林說，主要原因是人們沒有錢買食物，或者因為戰(zhàn)爭和政治壓迫。減少饑餓需要解決貧困和沖突，而不僅僅是種植更多的糧食。

Kling, in fact, is mystified by all the talk about potential food shortages. "Part of the reason may be it's an effective communication device," she says.

事實上，克林對所有關(guān)于潛在糧食短缺的討論感到困惑。“部分原因可能是它是一種有效的溝通工具，”她說。

Farmers and their lobbyists, she says, use the idea that the world needs more food to argue that governments shouldn't impose environmental regulations that might force farmers to pay for all the water pollution they cause, and the wetlands that they destroy.

她說，農(nóng)民和他們的游說者利用世界需要更多糧食的觀點來爭辯說，政府不應(yīng)該強加可能迫使農(nóng)民為他們造成的水污染和他們破壞的濕地買單的環(huán)境法規(guī)。