Watch the video clip and answer the questions.
Q1. What are the contributions and legacy of Yuan Longping?
Q2. What are Yuan Longping's dreams?
A1. Yuan Longping helped resolve the problem of feeding nearly one-fifth of the world's population with less than 9 percent of the world's total land and ensured food safety in China. His accomplishments in the field of rice production have left a lasting legacy to global food security.
A2. Yuan Longping had two dreams: (1) to enjoy the cool shadow under rice crops taller than men; (2) hybrid rice would be grown all over the world.
Watch the video clip and answer the questions.
Q1. What are the pros of pesticides?
Q2. What are the cons of pesticides?
A1.
Primary benefits include improved crop and livestock quality and increased crop and livestock yields.
Secondary benefits are less immediate, and they include food security, increased export revenues, and reduced international spread of disease.
In the short-range, pesticides reduce waste of crops, land, water, time, and other valuable resources. In fact, it has been estimated that investing around $10 billion in pesticides every year saves about $40 billion in crops.
A2.
The disadvantages to widespread pesticide use are significant. They include domestic animal contaminations and deaths, loss of natural antagonists to pests, pesticide resistance, losses to adjacent crops, and contamination of groundwater.
The fertility of soil is affected by the death or damage to microorganisms caused by pesticides.
Further, some pesticides induce immunotoxicity (免疫毒性) in humans which may lead to immunosuppression (免疫抑制), hypersensitivity (allergies), autoimmune (自身免疫的) diseases, and inflammation (炎症); children may be especially susceptible to the adverse effects of being exposed to pesticides.
People who work regularly with pesticides, such as farmers, are at greater risk of cancer. Thousands of non-lethal poisonings and cancer cases each year are attributable to pesticides.