精读分析 | 新加坡室内农业的发展(新加坡农业公司)

01

文章脉络分析

（借本杰明·斯旺的例子）引出主题：

城市农场（Para. 1）

↓

新加坡商业性农业的历史

和如今出现的城市农场新潮 （Para. 2）

↓

这有利于粮食供应稳定，

新加坡政府对此表示大力支持（Para. 3）

↓

新加坡政府在传统农业和城市农业上都注入了大笔资金，

给予了不少帮助（Para. 4）

↓

作为城市农业的一种，室内农场有利有弊，造价高但作物产量大、品质好，目前看来发展前途不错（Para. 5）

02

原文精读分析

Government subsidies make excellent fertiliser

政府补贴优质肥料

【Para.1】

Benjamin Swan’s farm is on the fourth floor of an office building in an industrial part of Singapore. To see his crops, visitors are escorted past a door unlocked with a thumbprint and through an airlock. (“Our air is certified,” says an assistant.) Room after room is filled with plumes of kale and lettuce, evenly spaced on long trays stacked in floor-to-ceiling racks. Cables snake across the racks and ceilings, like an electrical root system. LED lights, designed to emit only the part of the electromagnetic spectrum that plants can absorb, cast a purple glow. The greens are planted in a substrate—not a speck of soil is in sight.

本杰明·斯旺(Benjamin Swan)的农场位于新加坡某工业区一幢办公楼的四楼。要看他的庄稼，参观者需由人陪同，先通过一扇要指纹解锁的门，再穿过一间气闸室。(一名助理说：“我们的空气是经过认证的。”) 随后映入眼帘的就是一连串紧挨着的种植房。每个房间都摆满了一簇又一簇的羽衣甘蓝和莴苣，均匀地分布在长长的育苗盘上；育苗盘则堆叠在置物架上新加坡农业公司，从地板到天花板，满满当当。一根根电缆蜿蜒缠绕在架子和天花板上，好似一个电子根系网络。此外，房间内散发着紫光的LED灯是经过特殊设计的，只放射植物能吸收的那部分电磁波谱。所有绿色蔬菜都种在培养基里；放眼望去，看不到一粒尘土。

【Para.2】

Singapore is a hymn to concrete and metal. But look closely and you can see farms mushrooming across the city-state: on the roofs of malls and car parks, in schools, warehouses and even the site of a former prison. This is new. Commercial farming in the land-scarce city was phased out in the 1970s and 1980s. “Unlike virtually any other country on earth, Singapore has lost a generation of farmers,” says Bradley Busetto of the Global Centre for Technology, Innovation and Sustainable Agriculture, a UN outfit based in Singapore. Today just 720 square kilometres of land, less than 1% of Singapore, is set aside for farms. But a new crop of entrepreneurs are betting on rewards from finding idle spaces where lettuces may be coaxed to life. Since 2014, 31 commercial urban farms have sprouted.

新加坡是一支钢筋水泥的赞歌。但仔细观察，你会发现，在这个城市国家，农场正如雨后春笋般涌现：在商场和停车场的屋顶上，在学校里，在仓库里，甚至在监狱旧址上。这是一股新潮。20世纪70年代和80年代，商业性农业被逐步淘汰出这个土地稀缺的城市。来自全球技术、创新和可持续农业中心（总部位于新加坡，附属于联合国）的Bradley Busetto表示:“地球上几乎没有哪个国家像新加坡这样失去了一代农民。”如今，新加坡只有720平方公里的土地被用作农田，不足其国土面积的1%。但是，最新一批企业家正在寻找可以培育生菜的闲置空间，并把宝押在由此获得的收益上。自2014年以来，新加坡已涌现出了31座商业性城市农场。

【Para.3】

The government is delighted. Singapore imports more than 90% of its food. It is “extremely vulnerable to fluctuations in our food availability that may be brought about by climate change, disease outbreaks and global food situations,” says Low Li Ping of the Singapore Food Agency. In 2019 the government said the country should produce 30% of its food by 2030.

这是新加坡政府所喜闻乐见的。该国有90%的食物依赖进口。来自新加坡粮食署的Low Li Ping说:“新加坡极易受到食品供应波动的影响，而气候变化、疾病爆发和全球粮食形势都有可能引发这一波动。”2019年，新加坡政府表示到2030年，其国内的粮食产量应当要占到粮食总量的30%。

【Para.4】

It has put its money where its mouth is. Before the pandemic the government had pledged S$207m ($149m) to help farmers boost productivity and to spur research. In April the government, spooked by the pandemic’s (small) disruptions to global markets for food, promised an extra S$30m to help farmers grow more in the next six to 24 months, and invited urban farmers to apply to rent the roofs of nine government-owned car parks. Mr Swan, the indoor kale farmer, credits the government with helping to fund his company’s R&D and introducing him to investors.

新加坡说到做到。在大流行爆发前，政府承诺向农民提供2.07亿新元(合1.49亿美元)，以帮助农民提高生产力并促进相关研究。而4月，因疫情给全球食品市场造成了一些（小）干扰而饱受惊吓的政府再次承诺，额外提供3000万新元，以帮助农民们在未来6到24个月内种植更多作物，同时，它还邀请城市农民申请租用它名下九个停车场的屋顶。在室内种植羽衣甘蓝的斯旺先生大力称赞政府对他的帮助，不仅为他公司的研发提供了资金，还把他引介给投资者。

【Para.5】

Such help is gratefully received. Farming in the city can be expensive. Property and labour are costly. To maximise space, farmers stack plants. Some go inside, which means losing a free and plentiful input—the sun—but allows greater control of the environment. “Every room is its own climate,” says Sven Yeo of Archisen, an indoor farm that tinkers with temperature, humidity, carbon dioxide, light, water and nutrients to produce tastier lettuce, sorrel and chard. The technology does not come cheap, but it does allow for more frequent and bountiful harvests. Mr Swan says his farm yields 178 times more lettuce per square metre than a traditional one. It started production in 2015 and broke even for the first time in 2018. His labours are bearing fruit.

诸如此类的补助令人感激。城市耕作成本高昂，土地和劳动力都是不小的开支。为了最大限度地利用空间，种植者们会把植物堆叠起来。有些人则把它们搬入室内，虽然这意味着要失去一样免费而丰富的原料——阳光，但却获得了对种植环境更大的把控。“每个种植室都有自己的气候，”来自Archisen的Sven Yeo如是说。Archisen是一个室内农场，可以通过调节温度、湿度、二氧化碳、光线、水和营养成分来生产更美味的生菜、酸叶草和甜菜。这项技术并不便宜，但它确实能带来更频繁和丰富的收成。斯旺先生说，他的农场，每平方米的生菜产量是传统农场的178倍新加坡农业公司，于2015年投入生产，在2018年首次实现盈亏平衡。如今，斯旺先生的辛苦劳作正在收获成果。

JULY 4TH–10TH 2020| Asia

（精读文章由 经济学人考研英语 团队提供翻译和解析，团队成员由清华、北外、上外等高校英语专业研究生组成 ）

03

每日长难句分析

句子原文及翻译：

In April the government, spooked by the pandemic’s (small) disruptions to global markets for food, promised an extra S$30m to help farmers grow more in the next six to 24 months, and invited urban farmers to apply to rent the roofs of nine government-owned car parks.

而4月，因疫情给全球食品市场造成了一些（小）干扰而饱受惊吓的政府再次承诺，额外提供3000万新元，以帮助农民在未来6到24个月内种植更多作物，同时，政府还邀请城市农场主申请租用它名下九个停车场的屋顶。

句子结构分析：

句子结构：：

主句：

原因状语-spooked by the pandemic’s (small) disruptions to global markets for food，表明新加坡政府再度放款的原因

主语- the government；谓语-promised；

宾语-an extra S$30

目的状语- to help farmers grow more in the next six to 24 months

and-并列连词

并列谓语-invited；宾语-urban farmers；

to apply to rent the roofs of nine government-owned car parks-宾补。

其中，apply 意为“申请”，是不及物动词，一般用法为apply to sb/sth for sth 向某人/某方申请某项事物，

例：to apply to the company for a job向该公司申请一份岗位（注意这里的to是介词，表示向……提出申请）。

但apply也可以+to do 不定式，表示申请去作某事，这里的to do 可以理解为作目的状语修饰apply

例：He has applied to join the army. 他已报名参军。

They may apply to join the organization. 他们可能会申请加入该组织。

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