雅思真题集——2013.02.02阅读篇.docVIP

雅思考试阅读考题回顾 朗阁海外考试研究中心 王飞燕 考试日期： 2013年2月2日 Reading Passage 1 Title: Agriculture in Africa Question types: Sentence completion; Matching; TRUE/FALSE/NOT GIVEN; Multiple choice 文章内容回顾 非洲一个地区的农业，涉及到那个区域的耕作方式，种什么，种在什么地方，以及农业产量和影响农业产量的因素。 英文原文阅读 Does the future of farming in Africa lie in the private sector? African smallholder farmers are some of the most impoverished people in the world (43% are women) and they account for 80% of food production in sub-Saharan Africa (pdf). Some people argue their future will be driven by the private sector – the UKs Department for International Development has been working to link up businesses with smallholder farmers. Giant food retailers are also starting to realise that they need to look after African smallholders to safeguard their future. David Hughes, professor of food markets at Imperial College London, says there has been a sea change in the last 18 months at a senior level in companies including Unilever, Nestlé, Kraft and Mars. This is nothing to do with fuzzy CSR [corporate social responsibility]; this is that if they dont have profitable farmers then they wont have the raw materials they need to make their products. If there are 5 million cocoa producers in Africa, then we are looking at billions of dollars needing to be invested into their production. This month more than 500 private-sector representatives, government officials, donors, civil society representatives, farmer organisations and academics met in Ethiopia for a conference organised by the Technical Centre for Agricultural and Rural Co-operation. They discussed the role of the private sector in upgrading smallholder agriculture to meet demand from foreign and emerging markets in developing countries. Investment interest is underscored by the IMFs forecast of 5.7% economic growth in 2013 for sub-Saharan Africa, which is being driven by rising commodity prices. Rising food prices suggest global demand is still outpacing farmers productivity, an