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　　很多粮价不断上涨的其他发展中国家都在密切关注埃及局势，并考虑对策。

　　Government repression³, corruption⁴, unemployment and poverty united protesters to oust⁵ Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak last week. But experts say the rising price of food was one of the sparks that set off the historic protests.

　　The global price of wheat has risen 60 percent in the past year, and Egypt is the world's largest wheat importer. But that was not always the case.

　　全球小麦价格去年上涨了60%，埃及又是世界上最大的小麦进口国。但国际行动援助组织(ActionAid)政策分析人士布里尔(Marie Brill)说，情况不总是这样。

　　"I find it actually ironic⁶ that bread lines are what provoked the latest political unrest," says policy analyst⁷ Marie Brill, with the advocacy group ActionAid, "considering that in the 1960s, Egypt had been a breadbasket (major wheat producer) and able to meet its own wheat needs."

　　她说：“说到最近政治动荡是粮食短缺造成的，这真让人哭笑不得。退回到1960年代，埃及曾是一个主要的产粮国，完全能够自给自足。”

　　Focus on exports

　　So what happened? Brill says it goes back to the 1980s and 90s, when the United States, the World Bank and the International Monetary⁸ Fund encouraged developing countries to import grain produced cheaply in the U.S. and elsewhere and to focus their farming on export crops.

　　那么到底发生了什么呢？布里尔说，这要从1980和1990年代说起。美国、世界银行和国际货币基金组织当时都鼓励发展中国家进口美国和其他国家的廉价小麦，本国农业只要集中耕种出口作物就行。

　　"This has been a policy that has been pushed around the world, not just in Egypt or in the Middle East," Brill says. "But what we've found was that, as Egypt became more and more dependent on [imported] wheat, Egypt also became more and more vulnerable to price hikes and price volatility⁹."

　　她说：“这种政策不仅在埃及和中东其他地区推行，也在世界各地推广。但我们发现，埃及对进口小麦依赖越多，受粮价上涨与波动的影响就越大。”

　　Bad governance

　　Others say the roots of Egypt's vulnerability go much deeper. Democracy activist¹⁰ Mohamed Eljahmi blames 1950s land reform laws and bad governance in Egypt, not economic policies emanating¹¹ from Washington.

　　也有人认为，埃及粮食安全问题有更深层的原因。民主活动人士艾尔贾米(Mohamed Eljahmi)认为，埃及1950年代出台的土改法规和政府的不良统治，是造成埃及粮食安全问题的主要原因，与来自华盛顿的经济政策无关。

　　"That has been used as a crutch¹² by Arab regimes to justify¹³ their failures," Eljahmi says. "The problem is, there is a legacy¹⁴ of corruption. There is a lack of accountability. So, the failure really rests with the nature of the military regime in Egypt. Not the IMF or anything."

　　他说：“阿拉伯国家政府一直以此为借口来为自己的政策失误开脱。问题是，这些地区长期以来腐败盛行，缺乏问责制。所以，埃及的军人统治本身就给粮食安全造成隐患，不能怪国际货币基金组织或者其他国际机构。”

　　Subsidized bread

　　Whatever the cause of the failure, Egypt's food production has not kept pace with its population growth.

　　不管原因是什么，埃及粮食产量的增长速度跟不上人口的增长。

　　As prices climbed in recent months, the Egyptian government had to pay dearly to import wheat for its subsidized bread program. The country was already deeply in debt, which limited how it could respond to the protests.

　　埃及近几个月粮价上涨，政府不得不为粮食补助计划而高价进口小麦。美国彼得森国际经济研究所(The Peterson Institute for International Economics)资深研究员穆赫辛·汗(Mohsin Khan)分析，埃及同时又债台高筑，让政府在抗议活动面前束手无策。

　　"So, they really didn't have any scope for doing what an oil-producing country like Algeria could," says senior fellow Mohsin Khan at the Peterson Institute of International Economics. "Which is, you have unrest and you can throw money at it."

　　他说：“埃及因此无法象阿尔及利亚等产油国那样可以用钱来平息动荡。”

　　Algeria has made huge wheat purchases and set price controls following street protests. Not all citizens have been placated¹⁵, and some protesters returned to the streets this weekend.

　　阿尔及利亚街头抗议爆发之后，政府大量进口小麦，并对粮价实施管制。但并不是每位国民都平息了怒气，一些抗议分子上个周末又重新走上了街头。

　　Other countries watching

　　According to the UN Food and Agriculture Organization, there are 77 low-income countries that rely heavily on food imports.

　　根据联合国粮农组织的统计，世界共有77个低收入国家严重依赖粮食进口。

　　Khan says policymakers in these countries are going to say, "'Look, we have large-scale unemployment.We have high food prices rising and therefore pushing up inflation. This is likely to trigger protests in our country. So, what do we need to do?'"

　　穆赫辛·汗说，这些国家正密切关注埃及的局势。他说：“他们从经济角度考虑也许会问，我们的失业率很高，粮价又不断上涨，通胀随之恶化。这可能引发抗议活动。我们应该怎么做呢？”

　　Targeted aid, not subsidies¹⁶

　　Khan says poor countries need to target help to the poor, rather than blanketing the economy with price controls or food subsidies, which are expensive and bad for the economy in the long run.

　　他说，贫困国家需要向穷人提供帮助，而不是一昧实行价格管制或粮食补贴，因为后者开销很大，长远来说有损经济发展。

　　But they are among the easiest options. And Khan adds that people in other repressed countries may be inspired by events in Egypt and Tunisia, where food prices also contributed to the ouster of President Zine el-Abidine Ben Ali last month. He says governments will likely be tempted¹⁷ to step in rather than risk protests.

　　这些可都是眼前的手段。穆赫辛汗·说，其他专制国家的民众可能会受埃及和突尼斯抗议事件的影响而举行抗议活动，政府因此会采取控制措施，阻止抗议活动发生。突尼斯总统本·阿里就是因抗议事件下台的，而粮价飞涨是导致抗议事件爆发的一个原因。

　　"It's going to be very interesting to see how it plays out in terms of who's going to [act] first," he says. "Are the protests going to come first, or [are the governments going to] start subsidizing food?"

　　他说：“究竟哪一方会抢先采取行动？是抗议活动首先爆发，还是政府先为粮食提供补贴？这还需进一步观察，看点不少。”

　　Many experts agree the likelihood of protests is rising along with the cost of food.

　　很多专家都认为，只要粮价暴涨，抗议活动就在所难免。

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