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  3. The long years of food shortage in this country have suddenly given way to apparent abundance. Stores and shops are choked with

The long years of food shortage in this country have suddenly given way to apparent abundance. Stores and shops are choked with

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问题      The long years of food shortage in this country have suddenly given way to apparent abundance. Stores and shops are choked with food. Rationing is virtually suspended, and overseas suppliers have been asked to hold back deliveries. Yet, instead of joy, there is widespread uneasiness and confusion Why do food prices keep on rising, when there seems to be so much more food about? Is the abundance only temporary, or has it come to stay? Does it mean that we need to think less now about producing more food at home? No one knows what to expect.
     The recent growth of export surpluses on the world food market has certainly been unexpectedly great, partly because a strange sequence of two successful grain harvests in North America is now being followed by a third. Most of Britain’s overseas suppliers of meat, too, are offering more this year and home production has also raised.
     But the effect of all this on the food situation in this country has been made worse by simultaneous rise in food prices, due chiefly to the gradual cutting down of government support for food. The shops are over- stocked with food not only because there is more food available but also because people, frightened by high prices, are buying less of it. Moreover, the rise in domestic prices has come at a time when world prices have begun to fall with the result that imported food, with the exception of grain, is often cheaper than the home- produced variety. And now grain prices, too, are falling. Consumers are beginning to ask why they should not be enabled to benefit from this trend. The significance of these developments is not lost on farmers.
     The older generations have seen it all happen before. Despite the present price and market guarantees, farmers fear they are about to be squeezed between cheap food imports and a shrinking home market. Present production is running at 51 percent above pre-war levels, and the government has called for an expansion to 60 percent by 1956; but repeated ministerial advice is carrying little weight and the expansion program is not working very well.  
The decrease in world food prices was a result of ______.
选项 A、a sharp fall in the purchasing power of the consumers
B、a sharp fall in the cost of food production
C、the overproduction of food in the food-importing countries
D、the overproduction on the part of the main food exporting countries
答案D
解析 分析推理题。文章第三段第三句后半部分指出，世界食品价格下降导致了除粮食外的进口食品通常比国内生产的食品要便宜(...with the result that imported food...is often cheaper)，而由第二段两句可知，它们价格便宜的原因是因为粮食丰收和海外供应充足，因此本题答案是D 。
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