Another global concern comes into view: a food shortage.
粮食短缺引起全球关注。

As if global financial and environmental crisis were not enough, another alarming problem has been developing in the past few years: the food crisis.

_(1)_ In poorer countries, it's an urgent problem, and some parts of the world have already been experiencing food riots. Food prices are an economic issue, and in economics there is usually a lot of disagreement about the causes of problems. Some of the main factors, though, may be as follows.

Weather might be the most significant issue when it comes to current food shortages. _(2)_ To make matters worse, these droughts and other bad weather may be linked with global warming. Another problem is ever-rising oil and energy costs. _(3)_ Emerging economies, countries that were poor but are becoming rich, are using more and more fuel and competing for available resources. As economies around the world change, there is more demand for expensive food such as beef. However, a 100-calorie piece of beef requires 700 calories' worth of grain to be produced. _(4)_ Efforts to make biofuel may also be to blame. Some people argue that it takes far more energy to grow grain to produce biofuel than we can get from the biofuel itself. _(5)_

The food shortage has people pretty worried, but it is only recently that the problem has come to popular attention. For now, most of us will just have to wait and see what kind of solutions might be possible.

(A) If the argument is correct, then perhaps the grain would be better used for food instead.
(B) Over the last few years, the prices of food staples such as wheat, corn, and rice have doubled or tripled.
(C) So this means that beef production uses a lot more grain to produce a lot less food.
(D) Modern farming techniques require a huge amount of energy, and energy is becoming very expensive.
(E) The combination of recent natural disasters, such as the tsunami in Asia and droughts in Australia, Africa, and Central America, has led to very poor crop yields.

好像全球的经济与环境危机还不够多似的，过去几年来，还有另一个令人担忧的问题逐渐成形，那就是粮食危机。

过去几年来，小麦、玉米和稻米等粮食产品的价格飙高至两倍或三倍。在较穷困的国家，这是个迫切的问题，而且世界上有些国家已经因粮食短缺而发生暴动。粮食价格是一项经济问题，而在经济学上，对问题的成因通常有很多不同的论点。不过主要的因素可概述如下。

说到目前的粮食短缺，天气或许是最重大的因素。结合近来的许多天灾，像是亚洲的海啸与澳洲、非洲、中美洲的旱灾，均导致作物收成不佳。更糟的是，这些旱灾与其它坏天气都或许与全球暖化有关。另一个问题是持续攀升的油价与能源价格。现代的务农技术需要大量能源，而能源却越来越昂贵。而原本贫穷但逐渐迈向富裕的新兴国家，他们使用的能源越来越多，并且一同竞争现有的资源。

正当全球经济情势改变，像牛肉等昂贵食物的需求也愈来越大。然而，生产一块 100 卡路里的牛肉却需要消耗 700 卡路里的谷物。这表示牛肉的生产是利用较多谷物去制造少量食物。致力于生产生化燃料也是罪魁祸首之一。有些人争论说，为了制造生化燃料而栽种作物所耗费的能源，远远超过生化燃料本身能提供给我们的能源。如果这项论点属实，那么也许拿谷物来当食物反而比较理想。

粮食短缺使人们忧心忡忡，但这问题直到最近才引起大众的注意。现在，大多数人也只能静观其变，看哪种解决方式才是可行的。

标准答案: 1. (B) 2. (E) 3. (D) 4. (C) 5. (A)