随着气候变化，纳税人将对农民承担更多的补贴

随着气候变化，纳税人将对农民承担更多的补贴

Robert Henry is driving along the top of a Mississippi River levee, giving me a tour of land where he'd love to be planting soybeans right now. We're just east of New Madrid, Mo.

罗伯特·亨利正沿着密西西比河的堤顶开车，带我参观他现在想种植大豆的土地。我们就在密苏里州新马德里东部。

From the window of Henry's truck, I see what looks like a swamp, with trees standing in water. Then we make a turn, and suddenly, as far as I can see, there's water. It covers a wide flood plain between the main river channel and the levee. This is where Henry normally grows his crops.

从亨利卡车的车窗上，我看到了一片沼泽，树立在水中。然后我们转了个弯，突然，在我所能看到的地方，有水了。它覆盖了主河道和堤坝之间的一片宽阔的漫滩。亨利通常在这里种庄稼。

"Thousands and thousands of acres," Henry says. "Some of the best land in the world."

“成千上万英亩，”亨利说。“世界上最好的土地之一。”

Henry won't grow anything here this year. He even has a tractor and harvesting equipment stranded on an island out in the middle of the river.

亨利今年不会在这里种任何东西。他甚至有一台拖拉机和收割设备被困在河中央的一个小岛上。

But here's the good news: He'll get a check anyway — a payout from his crop insurance. It won't be as much money as he'd have gotten from a soybean crop, but it'll help him get by, "which is better than going under, you know?" he says.

但好消息是：不管怎样，他都会得到一张支票——一笔从农作物保险中得到的赔偿。虽然没有种大豆赚的钱多，但这会帮助他渡过难关，“你知道吗，这比破产要好?”他说。

Most farmers who grow big commodity crops like corn, soybeans and wheat buy crop insurance. It's a good deal for them; the federal government actually covers about 60 percent of the cost of the premiums.

大多数种植玉米、大豆和小麦等大宗商品作物的农民都会购买作物保险。这对他们来说是一笔好交易;联邦政府实际上承担了60%的保险费。

In fact, the federal government spends, on average, about $8 billion a year subsidizing crop insurance for farmers.

事实上，联邦政府平均每年花费大约80亿美元来补贴农民的农作物保险。

That number could be a lot bigger this year. Officials with the U.S. Department of Agriculture are expecting up to $1 billion to farmers in Henry's situation. At the end of the season, more claims will arrive from farmers who planted seeds but ended up with poor harvests.

今年这个数字可能会更大。美国农业部官员预计将向亨利这种情况下的农民提供高达10亿美元的援助。在季末，那些播种但最终收获不佳的农民将会有更多的赔偿。

Some people fear that this year's flooding is a taste of the future. Henry is hoping that it's not. "It could be global warming, but I don't think so," he says. "I think we're in a cycle of wet, and we'll cycle out of it and we'll be dry again."

一些人担心今年的洪水是未来的一个预兆。亨利希望它不是。“可能是全球变暖，但我不这么认为，”他说。“我认为我们正处于一个潮湿的循环中，我们将会循环出去，我们将再次变干。”

There are billions of dollars riding on this. Scientists, of course, say climate change is happening, although the precise effects — for example, on rainfall in the Midwest — are harder to predict.

数十亿美元都押在这上面。当然，科学家们说气候变化正在发生，尽管很难预测精确的影响，例如对中西部降雨量的影响。

A team of researchers at the USDA just released a study of how the changing climate could affect those crop insurance payouts.

美国农业部的一组研究人员刚刚发布了一项关于气候变化如何影响农作物保险支出的研究。

"We used five different climate models, some of which are more optimistic and some more pessimistic in terms of warming and precipitation," says economist Andrew Crane-Droesch, who led the research.

领导这项研究的经济学家安德鲁·克兰-德罗施说:“我们使用了五种不同的气候模型，在气候变暖和降水方面，有些模型比较乐观，有些则比较悲观。”

Generally, the models show a future, 40 to 80 years from now, in which farmers across the U.S. will bring in smaller harvests of the country's biggest crops — corn and soybeans. The drop in crop yields is projected to be particularly large in non-irrigated land across the South.

总的来说，这些模型显示了未来40到80年的情况，届时美国各地的农民将减少玉米和大豆这两种美国最大的农作物的收成。预计整个南部没有灌溉的土地的作物产量下降尤其严重。

This sounds bad, and it probably is for anyone who needs corn or soybeans. But for farmers, it may not be. Smaller harvests mean higher prices. "To the degree that climate change lowers production, it will increase the value [of the harvest], because of basic supply and demand," says Crane-Droesch.

这听起来很糟糕，可能对任何需要玉米或大豆的人来说都是如此。但对于农民来说，情况可能并非如此。收成减少意味着价格上涨。克拉内·道驰说:“就气候变化降低产量的程度而言，由于基本的供给和需求，它将增加(收成的)价值。”