Cassava diseases in Africa-英语听力

[00:00.100]From VOA Learning English, [00:02.280]this is the Agriculture Report. [00:06.210]Cassava is an important crop in some countries. [00:11.260]More than 160 million people across Africa [00:16.180]depend on the plant for food or to earn money. [00:21.050]The continent produces 60 percent of the world's cassava crop. [00:27.070]The United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization [00:31.920]reported last May that cassava production [00:35.690]has increased by 60 percent worldwide since 2000. [00:42.270]Agricultural experts had been expecting it [00:45.970]to grow even more during the next ten years [00:50.250]as policy makers begin to understand the crop better, [00:56.020]but those expectations have been crashed. [00:59.730]The amount of cassava being grown in east and central Africa [01:05.270]is falling because of diseases that reduce production. [01:10.570]Two such diseases of the cassava brown streak virus [01:16.320]and cassava mosaic virus, [01:19.750]they are wrecking Africa's agricultural lands. [01:24.710]The UN's Food and Agriculture Organization says, [01:29.460]brown streak disease does more damage [01:33.110]since it affects the root of the crop. [01:36.440]Luca Alinovi is the acting director of the FAO [01:42.310]in eastern and central Africa. [01:45.820]He says the agency has taken steps to improve the situation, [01:51.560]but it is not getting better. [01:55.260]"Doing right or wrong on cassava has a huge impact [01:58.820]on the food security of the people in this region, [02:00.520]has such a relevance in our daily lives [02:04.040]that we tend to forget it [02:05.740]because it appeared in a kind of technical discussion. [02:09.400]And I want to bring to your attention that, [02:11.700]although it is a technical issue [02:13.710]it requires knowledge and requires research." [02:16.570]Dominique Davoux heads the European Union Rural Development [02:22.940]and Agricultural program in Kenya. [02:26.340]He says the cassava diseases have changed over the years, [02:31.410]he says there is need to invest in research to fight the diseases. [02:37.520]"We supported the cassava initially, [02:39.730]there has been [a] stop in the support, [02:42.530]the research slugged [lagged] behind, [02:44.790]and the disease reinvented itself [and] propagated again. [02:48.940]We have to re-address the issue." [02:50.840]The FAO says at least $100 million is needed. [02:56.670]Some of the money would go to support clean farm production, [03:01.230]collect information and study the diseases. [03:06.090]The rest will go to market and micro-finance development [03:10.450]across the cassava production chain. [03:14.400]Experts say failure to do so means the cassava disease [03:19.940]will likely invade Nigeria, [03:22.390]the biggest producer of cassava in Africa. [03:26.860]And that's the Agriculture Report from VOA Learning English.