Two legendary names in American business think they can help solve global hunger by exporting the key to capitalism: the market.
两位传奇式的美国商人认为他们可以帮助解决全球饥饿问题，秘诀是在第三世界国家引入资本主义的精髓所在：市场经济。
The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and the charitable group of Warren Buffett's son, the Howard G. Buffett Foundation, this month will start a program to use food bought for humanitarian aid to try to boost the output and earnings of small farmers in Africa and Latin America.
比尔与美琳达•盖茨基金会(Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation)和沃伦•巴菲特(Warren Buffett)之子的慈善机构霍华德•巴菲特基金会(Howard G. Buffett Foundation)将在今年9月份启动一个项目，利用为人道主义救援购买的粮食，提高非洲和拉丁美洲农民的粮食产量和个人收入。
The plan, designed with the United Nations World Food Program and announced Wednesday, comes as rapidly rising food prices have increased the number of the world's hungry and sparked fears of a hunger crisis on a scale not seen in decades. Last week, U.N. organizations said that there are nearly one billion hungry people in the world, an increase from 848 million people in 2005.
这个与联合国世界粮食计划署(United Nations World Food Program)共同构想的项目于2008年9月24日公布。目前正值粮食价格快速飞涨之际，全球饥饿人口数量大增，人们担心可能会爆发数十年不遇的饥荒。上周，联合国表示，全世界有将近10亿人吃不饱饭，而在2005年为8.48亿人。
The U.N. has set goals to reduce poverty worldwide by 2015, and among those goals is halving the number of the world's hungry. If current trends continue, that's the one least likely to be achieved, say officials at U.N. organizations. This week at the U.N. General Assembly and related events in New York, U.N. representatives and other world leaders are discussing ways to stem the food crisis and voicing worries about the impact of the current economic tumult on programs to help the world's poor and hungry.
联合国设立了各种目标，力争在2015年前减少全球贫困人口数量，其中一个目标就是将饥饿人口的数量降低一半。然而，联合国官员表示，如果目前的状况持续下去，这将成为实现可能性最低的目标。在本周于纽约召开的联合国大会(U.N. General Assembly)上以及其他相关活动中，联合国代表和各国领袖正在商讨遏制粮食危机的方法。他们纷纷表示担 ，认为目前的全球经济动荡可能会对缓解全球贫困和饥饿的各个项目造成不利影响。
The Gates-Buffett program, called Purchase for Progress, is one attempt at a solution. Under the plan, money from the two foundations and other donors will be used to develop better ways for local farmers to supply the World Food Program with their products.
盖茨和巴菲特的项目名为“Purchase for Progress”(购粮发展计划)，尝试为上述问题找到一个解决方案。根据该计划，两个基金会将联合其他慈善组织一起拨款，研究出一种更好的方式，帮助当地农民将自己的农产品供应给世界粮食计划署。
The idea is simple. Small African farmers, who provide most of the continent's agricultural output, have never had a reliable market to sell their food. Many of them are in remote areas with little access to transportation and rely on archaic networks of small traders who set prices. Often farmers receive as little as one-third of the final retail price of a commodity.
这个计划背后的想法非常简单。以往，为非洲大陆提供大多数农产品的小农场主一直没有一个稳定的市场销售他们生产出来的粮食，很多人住在偏远山区，交通困难，只能依赖传统的小商贩网络，卖粮价格受制于人。这些农民拿到手的往往只是粮食最终零售价的三分之一。
The answer is to use the WFP buying power -- it expects to spend about $1 billion on food this year -- to make a market by purchasing directly from small farmers.
解决方法在于：利用世界粮食计划署的购买力形成一个市场，向小农场主直接收购农产品。2008年，该组织预计将拨出10亿美元购买粮食。
Thus far, those growers have been overlooked even though, in the case of Africa, they provide up to 80% of the continent's agricultural output. The WFP, for instance, buys most of its food from large suppliers.
目前，这些种植粮食的农民一直没能受到应有的关注，即使在80%的粮食来源于本地的非洲，情况依然如此。而世界粮食计划署所采购的大多数农产品都来自大型供应商。
American food-aid policy also ignores overseas sources. U.S. policy requires that American-grown food be dispatched to feed the hungry. President Bush has proposed shifting 25% of American food aid to such 'local purchase' programs, but Congress has repeatedly rejected any reform.
美国的粮食援助政策也忽视了农产品的海外采购渠道，该政策要求在实施饥饿援助计划时使用美国本土种植的农产品。布什总统曾建议将25%的美国粮食援助转为“贫困地区本地采购”模式，但国会一直拒绝在这方面做出任何改变。
Despite the importance of farming to Africa's economy, the continent's agriculture was a lower priority for many of the world's development agencies over the past two decades. In part, food was cheap and could be imported while development aid focused on urban industrial projects. As a result, Africa never shared in the gains of the Green Revolution, characterized by new crop strains that boosted food production in the 1960s and 1970s in Asia and Latin America.
虽然农业对非洲经济至关重要，但过去二十年来，许多世界发展组织始终没有把提升非洲农业水平放在首要位置。一部分原因在于，粮食价格很便宜，可以直接从海外进口到贫困地区，而经济援助的重点主要放在城市工业项目上。因此，非洲从未分享到“绿色革命”(Green Revolution)所带来的成果，如六、七十年代让亚洲和拉丁美洲受益匪浅的能提高粮食产量的新型农作物栽培等。
Also, development agencies such as the World Bank imposed a fiscal discipline on African governments that directed them to withdraw state support from agriculture.
此外，世界银行(World Bank)等发展机构对非洲政府的财政政策进行约束，要求它们收回向当地农业提供的政府补贴。
The result was that African farmers bore the risk of farming and absorbed the brunt of wild fluctuations in prices. When they produce a surplus, they often get punished by plummeting prices. Without reliable markets to absorb the harvests, the surpluses drive down prices below production costs, reducing the farmers' incentive to grow as much food as possible the following season.
其结果就是非洲农民承担了种植粮食的风险，并承受着农产品价格大幅波动所带来的冲击。当粮食丰收时，他们却往往受到粮食价格大跌的惩罚。没有一个稳定可靠的农产品收购市场，丰收反而会导致价格跌破生产成本，让农民没有动力在下一季种植尽可能多的粮食。
Such a market failure triggered famine in Ethiopia in 2003, when two successive seasons of record harvests led to an 80% drop in prices paid to farmers and a steep cut in planting the next year.
这种市场失灵引发了2003年埃塞俄比亚的饥荒，连续两季的创纪录大丰收导致粮食收购价格下跌80%，促使农民在次年大规模削减了种植量。
By redirecting buying power toward small farmers, the Purchase for Progress planners hope local growers can benefit from current high prices. They also think they can create a reliable market that in turn will encourage African farmers to grow more. The hope is that surplus could help Africa better feed itself, lessening the demand for food aid and the overall demand on the world's shrinking grain stockpiles, officials at the foundations and the WFP said.
通过向贫困地区的小农场主直接购买粮食，“购粮发展计划”的策划者希望当地农民能从目前较高的农产品价格中得到实惠。他们还想创造一个稳定的市场，鼓励非洲农民提高粮食产量。基金会和世界粮食计划署的官员说，他们希望，这种逐年提高的粮食供给能帮助非洲更好地实现自给自足，减少对外界粮食援助的需求，以及降低对全世界日益减少的粮食储备的消耗。
'Africa will be the next great producer of food, and the world will need it,' said Josette Sheeran, WFP executive director, speaking at a UN conference on African agriculture on Monday.
世界粮食计划署的执行主任乔塞特•希伦(Josette Sheeran)在近期关于非洲农业的联合国会议上说，“非洲将成为下一个粮食生产基地，全世界都需要这样一个基地。”
Ms. Sheeran cited food buyers in Ethiopia who currently pay a flat rate for grain, no matter the quality. That limits the incentive of farmers to raise high-quality grain. But if through the WFP program a cooperative of farmers could operate a processing facility to grade grain, they could charge a higher price, she said.
希伦提到，目前埃塞俄比亚的粮食采购商制定了一个统一的收购价格，不管粮食的品质到底如何，这限制了农民种植高品质粮食的积 性。然而，如果通过世界粮食计划署的购买计划，农民可以组成联合体，建立处理设备对粮食进行分级，这样就可以对高品质的农产品收取更高的价格。
That would take time. So the WFP proposes offering farmers a contract that would guarantee a set price up to three years into the future and small loans to finance the shift, she said.
希伦说，这一过程需要时间，因此世界粮食计划署提出与农民签订一项合同，保证在未来三年内以固定的价格收购粮食，并向农民提供小额贷款，以促成这一体制的转变。
Under its mandate, the WFP isn't allowed to use such contracts. The Gates-Buffett money will be used to test how well such tools work. The results may provide the impetus for changing the way the U.N. does business.
世界粮食计划署的章程不允许该机构签订这类合同，而盖茨和巴菲特基金会的项目将被用来检验这种方法的有效性，其结果将推动联合国改变目前处理粮食援助问题的方法。
'All of this is new territory for us,' said Ms. Sheeran.
希伦说，“对我们来说，所有这些都是新鲜事物。”
The five-year program aims to feed 250,000 people in the first year and benefit, over five years, 350,000 farmers. It will be introduced in 21 developing countries. Its initial funding totals $76 million.
这个为期五年的项目首年目标是让25万人填饱肚子，并在五年时间内让35万农民受益。该项目将在21个发展中国家实施，初期拨款总计7600万美元。
The program, while innovative, could be undermined by lack of investment in other key elements of African agriculture. The continent lacks efficient irrigation systems and mechanized farming and is hampered by bad roads and other infrastructure used by farmers.
该计划虽然具有创新性，但可能因缺乏对非洲农业其他关键要素的投资而令效果打折扣。非洲缺少高效的灌溉系统和机械化农耕设备，而且与农业密切相关的道路状况和其他基础设施都很薄弱。
More specifically, food bought by the U.N. group needs to be processed, tested for quality and packaged in a standard format. Such packaging facilities and practices don't exist in most countries where the program is aimed.
更具体的问题在于，联合国组织购买的粮食需要进行加工处理，品质检测，并包装成标准样式。这类加工包装设备和处理流程在该项目面对的大多数国家都不具备。
Introducing such changes could strain farmers, which in some cases would have to transport their product to collecting points, by raising their costs and risks. The program's planners said one answer to that would be building a system that offers prices high enough to make farming for the market profitable. 'Farmers should be getting a price premium of selling to a more professional market,' said Rajiv Shah, director of the Gates Foundation's agricultural group. 'The challenge is in making sure that the price premium they get offsets any additional cost.'
引入这种机制可能会给农民带来负担，在一些情况下，他们不得不把农产品运到指定的收集地点，从而提高成本和经营风险。该项目的策划者表示，解决问题的方法之一是建立一套体制，确保粮食收购价格足够高，让农民向市场提供粮食变得有利可图。“农民向一个更专业的市场出售粮食，理应得到更高的回报，”盖茨基金会农业项目组主任拉基夫•沙哈(Rajiv Shah)说，“挑战在于，要确保这种高回报能抵消额外增加的所有成本。”
Officials involved in the program say some of the funding will go toward filling infrastructure gaps. Mr. Shah said the program will try to organize collection points for farmers' goods and help farmers learn how to meet the standards for quality and packaging.
项目工作人员表示，一些拨款将用于基础设施建设。沙哈说，他们将争取为农民设立粮食收集点，并帮助农民达到质量和包装标准。
The bulk of the funding for the program will come from the Gates foundation, which will invest $66 million to test it in 10 countries: Burkina Faso, Ethiopia, Kenya, Malawi, Mali, Mozambique, Rwanda, Tanzania, Uganda and Zambia. The Buffett foundation will contribute $9.1 million aimed at three countries in Africa -- Liberia, Sierra Leone and Sudan -- and four in Latin America: El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras and Nicaragua. Howard Buffett said he's budgeted $30 million more for next year. The Belgian government will donate $750,000 to fund the program in the Democratic Republic of Congo.
该项目的一大部分拨款将来自于盖茨基金会，该基金会计划投资6,600万美元，在以下10个国家展开试点：布基纳法索、埃塞俄比亚、肯尼亚、马拉维、马里、莫桑比克、卢旺达、坦桑尼亚、乌干达和赞比亚。巴菲特基金会将拨款910万美元，在非洲三个国家进行试点：利比里亚、塞拉利昂和苏丹；还有四个拉美国家：萨尔瓦多、危地马拉、洪都拉斯和尼加拉瓜。霍华德•巴菲特表示，明年还将拨款3000万美元。比利时政府将捐款75万美元，资助该项目在刚果共和国进行试点。
The effort expands the Gates foundation's recent push into agriculture. In recent years, it has invested $900 million working with small farmers around the world to produce crops, fertilizers and farming methods that are tailored to the specific climate, soil and cultures of local communities. It has joined with the Rockefeller Foundation to create the Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa, which is aiding the chain of agriculture from improved seeds to better markets for the harvests.
这一努力是盖茨基金会向农业领域推进的新举动，近年来，该基金会已投入9亿美元，和全世界范围的小农场主展开合作，研究适合特定气候、土壤和当地传统文化的农作物、肥料和耕作方法。它还与洛克菲勒基金会(Rockefeller Foundation)一起，创立了“非洲绿色革命联盟”(Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa)，帮助提升农业产业链，内容包括改良种子、优化市场等举措。
At the program's unveiling in New York on Wednesday, Mr. Gates noted that there is more food available on the planet than ever before but 'getting that food equitably out to everyone has been a gigantic challenge.'
在9月24日于纽约举办的项目启动仪式上，比尔•盖茨表示，地球上的粮食供应比以往更多，但“让每个人平等地分享到这些粮食，已经成为一个巨大的挑战。”
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