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  3. Because agriculture is so important to a nation’s well-being, governments have always been concerned with it. For example, the U

Because agriculture is so important to a nation’s well-being, governments have always been concerned with it. For example, the U

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问题     Because agriculture is so important to a nation’s well-being, governments have always been concerned with it. For example, the United States and Canada have long produced surpluses that complicate their economies. Surpluses tend to lower prices to farmers and seriously endanger the agriculture industry. Governments have instituted systems of price supports to maintain a fair price when surpluses cause prices to drop. The system in the United States is a good example. A government program supports the prices paid to farmers for grains, and other agricultural products.
    Support prices are based on parity, which is the ratio between the prices farmers receive for their crops and the prices they must pay for things they need. The government selected the period from 1910 to 1914 as a time when farm prices were in a fair ratio with farming costs. This is the base period now used to determine parity prices.
    The idea is to assure farmers that what they get for a bushel of wheat will buy the same amount of, say, seed as it did in the years of the base period; if prices drop too far below this ideal the government can help in a number of ways. For example, it may buy much of a surplus at parity prices. Governments have instituted a wide variety of other controls for prices and, also, for farm output, mainly at the request of the farmers themselves. Farm prices tend to fluctuate more than other prices do, and the incomes of farmers fluctuate along with farm prices.
    Various measures for maintaining farm prices and incomes include tariff or import levies, import quotas, export subsidies, direct payment to farmers, and limitations on production. All of these measures are useful and are used to some extent by most developed countries. An important example of such a program is the soil-bank plan, which aimed at limiting production while improving farmland.
    The European Economic Community(EEC)established a common agricultural policy(CAP)for its member nations, called the Common Market countries. The aim is to create free trade for individual commodities within the community. When production of a commodity exceeds EEC consumption, the EEC may buy the excess for storage, pay to have it reprocessed, or export it to countries outside the Common Market. In this way the EEC can maintain its members’ farm prices at levels equal to or even higher than those in such market-competitive nations as the United States and Canada.
Why do governments show special concern for agriculture?
选项 A、Because farm prices go up and down constantly.
B、Because farmers usually earn less than other income groups.
C、Because there is not much arable farmland left.
D、Because farmers are confronted with fiercer competition.
答案A
解析 这是一道细节题。文章第一段指出：因为农业对一个国家的经济太重要了，所以政府总是非常关注它：生产过剩往往降低了农产品的价格，严重威胁农业生产。第三段指出：农产品的价格往往比其他产品的价格波动得更频繁，农民的收入也就随着农产品的价格波动。这说明，原因是农产品的价格和产量经常波动。A说“因为农产品的价格经常波动”，这与文章的意思符合。与B有关的信息是第三段的最后一句话，文中说“农产品的价格往往比其他产品的价格波动得更频繁，农民的收入也就随着农产品的价格波动”，并没有说农民的收入比其他群体少，所以B不对；文中没有提到C和D。
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