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  3. Across the Midwest, values are up 23％ from a year ago. Rents on Iowa farmland have surged 10.22％ so far this year. And more oppo

Across the Midwest, values are up 23％ from a year ago. Rents on Iowa farmland have surged 10.22％ so far this year. And more oppo

admin2022-12-09  155
问题     Across the Midwest, values are up 23％ from a year ago. Rents on Iowa farmland have surged 10.22％ so far this year. And more opportunity is on the way. More than 40％ of farmland is owned by people older than 65, so hundreds of millions of their acres will transfer to new owners in the coming years.
    That’s good news for real estate brokers, but a challenge to would-be farmers, who consistently cite the high cost of land as their greatest barrier to entry. That’s not just a rural problem. During the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic, supermarket shelves went empty due in part due to farm-industry consolidation. Smaller, innovative and more productive farmers are a means of counteracting the trends that led to those shortages. But to do it, they need land.
    New and beginning farmers (a formal category defined by the US Department of Agriculture as operating a farm for 10 years or less) naturally trend younger than established ones. And like younger, entrepreneurial people in any profession they tend to be more open to new ideas and products.
    For example, new and beginning farmers are less likely to grow grains and oilseeds—the most common US crops—than older farmers. Interest in climate-friendly farming appears high among younger farmers and organizations representing them.
    New and beginning farmers tend to operate on a smaller scale, using one-third less acreage to generate a similar proportion of revenue.
    But smaller, in modern agriculture, isn’t always better. Over the last three decades, agricultural production has become heavily consolidated, providing big producers with cost efficiencies and marketing advantages. Those advantages manifest themselves in several ways, including increasingly centralized food procurement channels not available to small farmers. That works out well for consumers—until a crisis hits and knocks out a major producer or two. The pandemic was one such shock.
    The Agriculture Department released a report examining the US food chain. The first listed priority is addressing concentration and consolidation in food production, manufacturing and distribution. A key means for doing so is boosting local and regional food networks, such as farmers’ markets that provided a safety net to consumers and producers during the pandemic.
    Around 23％ of beginning farmers sell through regional and local markets. Working in parallel with other less established farmers, they are the vanguard for a food sector that’s adapting to climate change and changing consumer tastes. However, they rent more and own less land than their veteran counterparts. Today’s surging land prices make the challenge more difficult.
    To encourage them, the federal government is proposing to begin scoring banks on how well they extend credit to new and beginning farmers. Its rule would encourage lending. Meanwhile, Congress should consider measures that will encourage retiring farmers to sell their land to new ones.
    None of these measures could produce an immediate uptick in land ownership by younger and beginning farmers facing record land prices. But over time, they could help grow the next generation of resilient and productive farmers.
According to the text, the vulnerability of the US food chain lies in________.
选项 A、competition between new and old farmers
B、industry’s inadaptability to environment
C、consolidation of farm industry
D、localization of food networks
答案C
解析 细节题。根据题干中的us food chain可定位至第七段。第二句提到，addressing concentration and consolidation in food production，manufacturing and distribution(列出的第一个优先事项是解决粮食生产、制造和分销的集中和整合问题)，也就是粮食链条中的集中和整合问题。第六段提到，粮食采购渠道被几个大生产商垄断，新冠肺炎疫情对这种粮食采购链的商家垄断造成了冲击，由此可知题干中的“脆弱性”指的就是第六段的内容。因此美国粮食链条的脆弱性一部分原因是农业的整合，故C项正确。选项A和B项属于无中生有，文中并未提到新老农民之间的竞争，或粮食行业不适应环境，故排除。D项属于答非所问，粮食网络的地方化是解决粮食链条脆弱性的一个措施，而非导致其脆弱性的原因，故排除。故本题答案为C项。
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