填空题

The word economy has run into a brick wall. Despite countless warnings in recent years about the need to address a potential hunger crisis in poor countries and an energy crisis worldwide, world leaders failed to think ahead. The result is a global food crisis. The price of wheat, corn and rice have more than doubled in the past two years. And oil’s price have increased more than three times since the start of 2004. These food-price increases, combined with increasing energy costs, will slow if not stop economic growth in many parts of the world and will even affect political stability, as evidenced by the protest riots that have erupted in places like Haiti, Bangladesh and Burkina Faso. Practical solutions to these problems do exist, but we’ll have to start thinking ahead and acting globally.
The crisis has its roots in four interlinked trends. The first is the chronically low productivity of farmers in the poorest countries, caused by their inability to pay for seeds, fertilizers and irrigation. The second is the misguided policy in the U. S. and Europe of subsidizing the diversion of food crops to produce biofuels like corn-based ethanol. The third is climate change: take the recent droughts in Australia and Europe, which cut the global production of grain in 2005 and 2006. The fourth is the growing global demand for food and feed grain brought on by swelling populations and incomes. In short, rising demand has hit a limited supply, with the poor taking the hardest blow.
So, what should be done Here are three steps to ease the current food crisis and avoid the potential for a global crisis. The first is to promote the dramatic success of Malawi, a country in southern Africa, which three years ago established a special fund to help its farmers get fertilizer and seeds with high productivity. Malawi’s harvest doubled alter just one years. An international fund based on the Malawi model would cost a mere $10 per person annually in the rich world, or $10 billion altogether. Such a fund could fight hunger as effectively as the Global fund to Fight AIDS, TB and Malaria is controlling those diseases.
Second, the U. S. and Europe should abandon their policies of paying partly for the change of food into biofuels. The U. S. government gives farmers a taxpayer-financed payment of 51 cents per gallon of ethanol (乙醇) changed from corn. There may be a case for biofuels produced on lands that do not produce foods—tree crops, grasses and wood products—but there’s no case for the government to pay to put the world’s dinner into the gas tank. Third, we urgently need to weather-proof die world’s crops as soon and as effectively as possible. For a poor farmer, sometimes something as simple as a farm pond— which collects rainwater to be used in dry weather—can make the difference between a good harvest and a bad one. The world has already committed to establishing a Climate Adaptation Fund to help poor regions climate-proof vital economic activities such as food production and health care but has not yet acted upon the promise.
A. poor countries
B. all the world
C. the Climate Adaptation Fund
D. the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, TB and Malaria
E. Bangladesh
F. Malawi
G. the U. S. and Europe
Protest riots occurred in ______.