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【Disabled N. Korean Defector Finds Hope in Seoul】朝鲜残疾背叛者在首尔寻求希望
SEOUL - For North Korean refugees, the journey to freedom can be physically grueling. Many swim across a river into China and then travel undercover, avoiding authorities before they reach Southeast Asia and head to South Korea. Imagine making the trip with only one foot and one hand.
Every week, Ji Seong-ho holds a silent demonstration against North Korea. He is one of the 23,000 defectors in South Korea who have fled the repressive Pyongyang government.
Ji's journey south was more challenging than most. During the famine of the mid-1990s, when Ji was 14, he suffered a terrible accident.
"I was helping my parents make a living by stealing coal off trains and selling it in the market. I got dizzy once and I ended up falling off a moving train. It ran me over," Ji explains.
He lost his left hand and foot.
Eventually, Ji crossed into China to find food. But on the way back, he was caught by North Korean guards.
"The police severely beat me for a week, maybe more than other escapees. They told me that because I am disabled I brought shame to North Korea and that someone with only one leg should stay home," Ji recalls. "That is when I lost my trust in the North Korean government."
In 2006, Ji escaped again and made it to South Korea, where he was given a prosthetic foot and hand.
Many refugees arrive with traumatic injuries that leave them emotionally impaired. Kion Won-hyoung is a psychologist at a government resettlement facility for defectors.
"Because of their experience, many refugees are afraid of even the security guards at the facility," explains Kion. "They have nightmares about being tortured in North Korea, or being chased by animals."
Ji Seong-ho is now a law student. He says he had never imagined how much easier life is for the disabled in South Korea.
"I don’t feel any discrimination toward disabled people in South Korea," Ji says."I think that’s because of its democracy and good education. I really feel it’s like heaven here."
Ji says he is waiting for the Koreas to be unified. He says that's when he will finally be able to step back onto his homeland.
VOA慢速
【The Limits to Organic Farming in Feeding the World】有机耕种食品遭限制
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TEXT:This is the VOA Special English Agriculture Report.Organic farming avoids the use of chemical pesticides and manmade fertilizers. Supporters say organic farming is better for the environment than conventional methods. But studies have shown that organic farming generally produces less food per hectare.
That lower yield means feeding the world organically would require more land. But good farmland is limited. And scientists say deforestation from the clearing of land for agriculture is already a problem for climate change.
In a new study, researchers wanted to measure the difference between conventional and organic yields. So they combined the results of sixty-six earlier studies. They found that some organic farms can yield almost as much as conventional farms. But most cannot.
Verena Seufert at McGill University in Montreal, Canada, was the lead author of the study in the journal Nature.
VERENA SEUFERT: "Conventional yields are typically higher than organic yields. But with certain management practices, certain environmental conditions, and certain crop species, this yield difference can be quite small."
On average, organic farms produced twenty-five percent less compared to conventional farms. But yields of organic fruits and other perennial crops nearly equaled the yields from conventional ones. So did the yields of legumes such as soybeans. Legumes produce some of their own nitrogen fertilizer.
However, organic vegetables and cereal crops like maize and wheat had a lot lower yields compared to conventionally grown crops.
Ms. Seufert says the soil on organic farms holds water better, and that can reduce the yield difference. Also, organic farmers can improve their yields by making sure their crops get enough fertilizer. But increasing the nitrogen is harder to do organically, using just animal waste and crop rotations.
Organic farmers rotate food crops with plants that fertilize the soil. But while these "cover," or fertilizer, crops are growing, food crops have to be grown on other land. And if farmers use manure , they have to feed the animals that produce it, and that requires grazing land or crop land.
The United Nations predicts that world demand for food will grow seventy percent by the middle of the century. John Reganold is a soil scientist at Washington State University. He says no one should dismiss organic agriculture as part of the solution.
JOHN REGANOLD: "I think when people see these studies, their first reaction is, 'Well, my goodness, organic farming can't feed the world.' Guess what? Conventional farming cannot sustainably feed the world."
Mr. Reganold -- who was not part of the study -- says farming is increasingly a combination of organic and conventional methods.
JOHN REGANOLD: "And it's really going to be a blend of these, I think, more diverse systems that are going to save us."
参考译文:这里是美国之音慢速英语农业报道。
有机农业避免使用化学杀虫剂和人造肥料，支持者说，与传统方法相比，有机农业对环境更有好处。但研究表明，有机农业每公顷的产量通常要少些。
低产量意味着，用有机农业为全世界提供粮食的话，需要更多耕地。但良田是有限的。科学家说，砍伐森林以开垦农田已经是造成气候变化的一个问题。
在一份新研究中，研究者希望能测量出传统农业与有机农业产量的差异。他们结合了早期66份研究结果，发现有的有机农场的产量几乎和传统农场一样。但大多数不能。
Verena Seufert就职于加拿大麦基尔大学，他是《科学》杂志上这份研究的主要作者。
VERENA SEUFERT: “传统农业的产量通常高于有机农业，但在特定管理实践、一定环境条件和一定作物品种的条件下，产量的差异会很小。”
一般说来，有机农场的产量比传统农业要少25%，但有机水果和其他多年生作物的产量几乎与传统农业一样。黄豆一类的豆类作物也是如此，豆类能生产自己所需的一些氮肥。
然而，有机蔬菜和诸如玉米和小麦的谷类作物的产量比传统种植的作物要少得多。
SEUFERT说，有机土壤能更好地保持水分，从而减少产量差异。有机农民可以给作物施足量的肥料以提高产量，但仅仅使用动物粪便和作物轮作这种方式增加氮量很难。
有机农民将粮食作物与能肥田的作物轮作，但种植这些肥料作物时，就只能在其它地里种植粮食作物。如果农民使用农家肥，就必须喂养产生农家肥的动物。这些就需要牧场和耕地。
联合国预测，到本世纪中叶，全世界粮食需求量将增加70%。John Reganold是华盛顿州立大学一名土壤科学家，他说，我们不该忽略有机农业作为一种解决办法。
John Reganold：“我想，人们看到这些研究时，第一个反应就是‘哦，天啊，有机农业无法养活全世界’你猜怎么着？传统农业无法可持续性地养活全世界。”
Reganold并非该研究的参与者，他说，农业正日益成为有机和常规方式的结合体。
JOHN REGANOLD: “它确实会融合这些。我认为更多样化的体系会拯救我们。”
注：本VOA译文由可可英语Sunny提供。
