题目内容
Farming is moving indoors, where the sun never shines, where rainfall is irrelevant (无关的) and where the climate is always right. The perfect crop field could be inside a windowless building with controlled light, temperature，humidity，air quality and nutrition. It could be in a New York high- rise or a complex （建筑群） in the Saudi desert. It may be an answer to the world’s food problems.
The world already is having trouble feeding itself. Half the people on Earth live in cities, and nearly half of those – about 3 billion – are hungry or ill–fed. Food prices, currently increasing, are badly affected by dryness, floods and the cost of energy required to plant, harvest and transport it. And prices will only get more unstable. Climate change makes long-term crop planning uncertain. Farmers in many parts of the world already are using water available to the last drop. And the world is getting more crowded: by mid-century, the global population will grow from 6.8 billion to 9 billion.
To feed so many people may require expanding farmland at the expense of forests and wilderness, or finding ways to greatly increase crop output.
Gertjan Meeuws and three other Dutch bioengineers grow vegetables and house plants in closed and regulated environments. In their research station, water flows into the pans when needed, and the temperature is kept constant. Lights go on and off, creating “day” and “night”, but according to the rhythm of the plant.
Meeuws says a building of 100 square meters and layers of plants could provide a daily diet of 200 grams of fresh fruit and vegetables for the entire population of Ken Bosch, about 140,000 people. Their idea isn’t to grow foods that require much space, like corn or potatoes.
Sunlight is not only unnecessary but can be harmful. Plants need only specific wavelengths of light to grow. Their growth rate is three times faster than under greenhouse conditions. They use about 90 percent less water than outdoor agriculture. And city farming means producing food near the consumer, so there’s on need to transport it long distances.
【小题1】According to the text, Gertjan Meeuws’ farming _______.
| A．can be used for corn production |
| B．is much like greenhouse farming |
| C．is adaptable to any environment |
| D．uses more water than outdoor farming |
| A．The effect of climate | B．The hungry people in cities. |
| C．The world’s food problem. | D．The world’s increasing population. |
| A．To compare traditional and indoor farming. |
| B．To discuss the influence of climate change. |
| C．To explain the world’s food problem. |
| D．To introduce a new model of farming. |
【小题1】C
【小题2】C
【小题3】D
解析
“Eat local.” It’s one way to reduce human effect on the planet. Eating local means to try to buy and consume foods that are grown in places close to home. However, most of the food sold at supermarkets is not locally grown or produced. Trucks and planes deliver these foods from hundreds or thousands of miles away. During the transportation, greenhouse(温室)gases are produced, causing global warming. So the shorter the distance your foods must travel, the less the harm is done to the environment.
But how do you get local food if you live in a large city, hundreds of miles away from farms？Environmental health scientist Dickson Despommier and his students came up with the idea of a “vertical(垂直的)farm”. 
A vertical farm is a glass-walled structure that could be built as tall as a skyscraper(摩天大楼). Since the garden is built upwards, rather than outwards, it requires much less space than an ordinary farm. The world is quickly running out of room for ordinary farming. Vertical farms could be a key to this situation. Despommier imagines a 30-story building with a greenhouse on every floor. The walls of the building would be clear, to allow crops to get as much sunlight as possible. Depending on a city’s water resources, Despommier thinks hydroponic(水培的) farming is another method for the vertical farm which needs no soil to grow plants.
Despommier says the hydroponic greenhouses would use a system that would use a city’s waste water and fill it with nutritions to make the crops grow. If this method works, it would provide food to a city and save millions of tons of water.
The idea of a vertical farm has attracted the attention of government officials around the world. Scott Stringer, a government official from New York City, thinks the city is suitable for the vertical farming. “Obviously we don’t have much land left for us,” Stringer said. “But the sky is the limit in Manhattan. ”
Despommier admits that there is still a lot of work to do to make vertical farms a reality. “But I think vertical farming is an idea that can work in a big way,” he says.
【小题1】Why are people advised to eat local?
| A．Because it means convenience(方便) to people. |
| B．Because it can help people save a lot of money. |
| C．Because local food has more nutrition. |
| D．Because it is environmentally friendly. |
| A．It produces healthier food. |
| B．It does less harm to the cities. |
| C．It needs less space of the city. |
| D．It requires less transport costs. |
| A．people can make full use of vertical space of Manhattan |
| B．there is a limit for using empty land in Manhattan |
| C．the height of buildings in Manhattan is limited |
| D．Manhattan can spread as far as possible |
| A．No soil is needed to grow plants in a vertical farm. |
| B．It has solved the problem of the food shortage in a big way. |
| C．It is a 30-story building with a greenhouse on every floor. |
| D．Crops are mainly grown in the rainwater in a vertical farm. |