A For more than forty years the cost of food has been rising. A40 多年来，食物的价格一直在上涨。 It has now reached a point where a growing number of people believe that it is far too high, and that bringing it down will be one of the great challenges of the twenty first century. 现在越来越多的人认为食物的价格高得离谱，而让食物价格降下来将会是21 世纪人类面临的最大挑战之一。 That cost, however, is not in immediate cash. 然而这个价格并不是马上能用现金计算出来的。 In the west at least, most food is now far cheaper to buy in relative terms than it was in 1960. 至少在西方国家，现在大多数食品要比1960 年便宜得多。 The cost is in the collateral damage of the very methods of food production that have made the food cheaper: in the pollution of water, the enervation of soil, the destruction of wildlife, the harm to animal welfare and the threat to human health caused by modern industrial agriculture. 尽管食物变得更加便宜了，但是这个价格是以食品生产方式所带来的间接损失为代价的，这些损失包括：现代工业化农业生产引发的水质污染、土壤流失、野生物种的毁灭，对动物的伤害，以及人类健康受到的威胁。

B First mechanisation, then mass use of chemical fertilisers and pesticides, then monocultures, then battery rearing of livestock, and now genetic engineering - the onward march of intensive farming has seemed unstoppable in the last half-century, as the yields of produce have soared. B首先是实行机械化，其次是滥用化学肥料和杀虫剂，继而是单一栽培，最后又是家畜的圈养，而现在又开始了基因工程——由此看来，在20 世纪后半叶，随着同期产量的急剧增加，集约农业发展的步伐似乎势不可挡。 But the damage it has caused has been colossal. 但是这种农业所带来的破坏也是巨大的。 In Britain, for example, many of our best-loved farmland birds, such as the skylark, the grey partridge, the lapwing and the corn bunting, have vanished from huge stretches of countryside, as have even more wild flowers and insects. 例如在英国，许多人最爱的田间鸟类，像云雀、灰山鹑、田凫及黍，已经从广阔的农村消失了，而消失各种野花和昆虫更是数不胜数 This is a direct result of the way we have produced our food in the last four decades. 。这一切都是缘于在过去的40 年中我们对食物的生产方法。 Thousands of miles of hedgerows, thousands of ponds, have disappeared from the landscape. 数千英里的灌木篱墙、数千个池塘已经从我们眼前消失了。 The faecal filth of salmon farming has driven wild salmon from many of the sea lochs and rivers of Scotland. 人工鲑鱼养殖所产生出来的垃圾已经使得许多原产于苏格兰河流海湾的野生鲑鱼逃离。 Natural soil fertility is dropping in many areas because of continuous industrial fertiliser and pesticide use, while the growth of algae is increasing in lakes because of the fertiliser run-off. 与此同时，由于持续不断地使用工业化肥及杀虫剂，很多地区自然土壤的肥沃度也开始下降，而化肥的流失则导致其周边湖里的海藻迅速生长。

C Put it all together and it looks like a battlefield, but consumers rarely make the connection at the dinner table. C综合上述因素，这一切看起来就像个战场，然而消费者在餐桌上很少想到这些。 That is mainly because the costs of all this damage are what economists refer to as externalities: they are outside the main transaction, which is for example producing and selling a field of wheat, and are borne directly by neither producers nor consumers. 这主要是因为这些损失的成本就是经济学家所指的外在成本：它们游离于主要交易（比如说一块地里小麦的生产与销售）之外，同时这些成本既不需要生产者负担，也不需要消费者负担。 To many, the costs may not even appear to be financial at all, but merely aesthetic - a terrible shame, but nothing to do with money. 对于很多人来说，这个成本甚至并不会以金钱的形式出现，而仅仅是美学上的一种体现——很遗憾，但是这完全与金钱无关。 And anyway they, as consumers of food, certainly aren't paying for it, are they? 无论如何，作为食物的消费者，是不会为此买单的，对吗？

D But the costs to society can actually be quantified and, when added up, can amount to staggering sums. D但是对于社会来说，成本实际上是能够量化的。当把所有的数字都加起来时，总和会是很惊人的。 A remarkable exercise in doing this has been carried out by one of the world's leading thinkers on the future of agriculture, Professor Jules Pretty, Director of the Centre for Environment and Society at the University of Essex. 埃塞克斯大学环境与社会中心的负责人Jules Pretty 教授是未来农业状况研究的主要创始人，他已在这一领域开创了先河。 Professor Pretty and his colleagues calculated the externalities of British agriculture for one particular year. 他和他的同事统计了英国某一年农业成本的外部成本。 They added up the costs of repairing the damage it caused, and came up with a total figure of ￡2,343m. 他们还把修复这些损失的成本也加了进来，得出的总数高达23.43 亿英镑。 This is equivalent to ￡208 for every hectare of arable land and permanent pasture, almost as much again as the total government and EU spend on British farming in that year. 这相当于每公顷的耕地和永久牧场的成本为208 英镑，而这个数字几乎等同于英国政府和欧盟这一年花在农业上的钱。 And according to Professor Pretty, it was a conservative estimate. 根据Pretty 教授所说，这还是个相当保守的估计。

E The costs included: ￡120m for removal of pesticides; ￡16m for removal of nitrates; ￡55m for removal of phosphates and soil; ￡23m for the removal of the bug cryptosporidium from drinking water by water companies; ￡125m for damage to wildlife habitats, hedgerows and dry stone walls; ￡1,113m from emissions of gases likely to contribute to climate change; ￡106m from soil erosion and organic carbon losses; ￡169m from food poisoning; and ￡607m from cattle disease. E这些成本包括：用于去除杀虫剂的1.2 亿英镑；用于去除硝酸盐的0.16 亿英镑；用于去除磷酸盐的 0.55亿英镑；自来水公司为防止隐孢子虫污染饮用水花费的 0.23亿英镑；还有用于修复被破坏的野生动植物栖息地、灌木树篱、白石墙的1.25 亿英镑；用来修复因汽车尾气排放导致的气候变化的11.13 亿英镑；用于防止土壤侵蚀及有机碳流失的 1.06亿英镑；用于防止食物中毒的 1. 69亿英镑；以及用于治疗病牛的 6.07亿英镑。 Professor Pretty draws a simple but memorable conclusion from all this: our food bills are actually threefold. 基于以上数据，Pretty 教授得出一个简单却令人印象深刻的结论：实际上，我们食物的成本有三层内容。 We are paying for our supposedly cheaper food in three separate ways: once over the counter, secondly through our taxes, which provide the enormous subsidies propping up modern intensive farming, and thirdly to clean up the mess that modern farming leaves behind. 我们现在正以三种独立的方式为我们所谓的便宜食物付款：首先是在柜台前付款；其次通过纳税（这些税收为现代集约农业提供了大量的补贴资金）；最后要为清理现代农业所遗留下来的混乱局面买单。

F So can the true cost of food be brought down? F那么，食物的真正成本可以降低吗? Breaking away from industrial agriculture as the solution to hunger may be very hard for some countries, but in Britain, where the immediate need to supply food is less urgent, and the costs and the damage of intensive farming have been clearly seen, it may be more feasible. 为了解决温饱而脱离工业化农业的做法对于有些国家来说可能很困难，但是在英国，这种食物供应的需求并不是急切的，而且人们已经清楚认识到了集约农业的代价及损失，因而这种做法更加可行。 The government needs to create sustainable, competitive and diverse farming and food sectors, which will contribute to a thriving and sustainable rural economy, and advance environmental, economic, health, and animal welfare goals. 政府需要建立可持续的、有竞争力的、多样化的农业模式及食物体系，以创造出一个繁荣并持续向好的农村经济，从而达到改善环境和经济及保护动物的最终目标。

G But if industrial agriculture is to be replaced, what is a viable alternative? G但是什么样的农业能够替代工业化农业？ Professor Pretty feels that organic farming would be too big a jump in thinking and in practices for many farmers. Pretty 教授认为有机农业对于许多农民来说，无论是理论上还是实践上都显得跳跃性太强。 Furthermore, the price premium would put the produce out of reach of many poorer consumers. 除此之外，溢价会把购买力弱的消费者拒之门外。 He is recommending the immediate introduction of a ‘Greener Food Standard', which would push the market towards more sustainable environmental practices than the current norm, while not requiring the full commitment to organic production. 因而Pretty 教授建议立即引入“绿色食物标准”，这一标准不仅可以把市场从现行标准推进到向可持续性更强的环保发展，同时也不用把市场全权转化成有机农产品的生产。 Such a standard would comprise agreed practices for different kinds of farming, covering agrochemical use, soil health, land management, water and energy use, food safety and animal health. 这一标准将囊括针对不同种类农业的议定措施，覆盖范围包括农业化肥的使用、水土的维护、土地的管理、水和能源的应用、食物的安全及动物的健康等。 It could go a long way, he says, to shifting consumers as well as farmers towards a more sustainable system of agriculture. 他说，使农民和消费者转向一个可持续性更强的农业体制，将会有一条很长的施，覆盖范围包括农业化肥的使用、水土的维护、土地的管理、水和能源的应用、食物的安全及动物的健康等。