BEST IELTS Academic Reading Test 509

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IELTS ACADEMIC READING TEST 509 – PASSAGE – 2

IELTS ACADEMIC READING TEST – 509

READING PASSAGE – 2

An ordinary miracle

Bigger harvests, without pesticides or genetically modified Crops? Farmers can make it happen by letting weeds do the work.

Across East Africa, thousands of farmers are planting weeds in their maize fields. Bizarre as it sounds, their technique is actually raising yields by giving the insect pests something else to chew on besides maize. “It’s better than pesticides, and a lot cheaper,” said Ziadin Khan, whose idea it is, as he showed me round his demonstration plots at the Mbita Point research station on the shores of Lake Victoria in Kenya. “And it has raised farm yields round here by 60 to 70 per cent.”

His novel way of fighting pests is one of a host of low-tech innovations boosting production by 100 per cent or more on millions of poor Third World farms in the past decade. This “sustainable agriculture” just happens to be the biggest movement in Third World farming today dwarfing the tentative forays into genetic manipulation.

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In East Africa, maize fields face two major pests, and Khan has a solution to both. The first is an insect called the stem borer, whose larvae eat their way through a third of the region s maize most years. But Khan discovered that the borer is even fonder of a local weed, napier grass. By planting napier grass in their fields, farmers can lure the stem borer away from the maize – and into a honey-trap. For the grass produces a sticky substance that traps and kills stem borer larvae.

The second pest is Striga, a parasitic plant that wrecks $10 billion worth of maize crops every year, threatening the livelihoods of 100 million Africans. “Weeding Striga is one of the most time-consuming activities for millions of African women farmers,” says Khan. But he has an antidote: another weed called Desmodium. “lt seems to release another sort of chemical that Striga doesn’t like. At any rate, where farmers plant Desmodium between rows of maize, Striga won’t grow.”

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“The success of sustainable agriculture is dispelling the myth that modern techno-farming is the most productive method,” says Miguel Altieri of the University of California, Berkeley. “In Mexico, it takes 1.73 hectares of land planted with maize to produce as much food as one hectare planted with a mixture of maize, squash and beans. The difference,” he says, “comes from the reduction of losses due to weeds, insects and diseases and a more efficient use of the available resources of water, light and nutrients. Monocultures breed pests and waste resources,” he says.

Researchers from the Association Tefy Saina, a Madagascan group working for local farmers, were looking for ways to boost rice yields on small farms. They decided to make the best use of existing strains rather than track down a new breed of super-rice. Through trial and error, a new system was developed that raises typical rice yields from three to twelve tonnes per hectare. The trick is to transplant seedlings earlier and in smaller numbers so that more survive; to keep paddles unflooded for much of the growing period; and to help the plants grow using compost rather than chemical fertilisers. The idea has grown like wildfire, and 20,000 have adopted the idea in Madagascar alone.

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Few countries have switched wholesale to sustainable agriculture. But Cuba has. The collapse of the Soviet Union in 1990 cut off cheap supplies of grain, tractors and agrochemicals. Pesticide use halved overnight, as did the calorie intake of its citizens. The cash-strapped country was forced to embrace Low-input farming or starve. “Today,” says Fernando Funes of the Country’s Pasture and Fodder Research institute, “teams of oxen replace the tractors, and farmers have adopted organic methods, mixing maize with beans and cassava and doubling yields in the process, helping average calorie intake per person rise back to pre-1990 levels.”

Worldwide, one of the most widely adopted sustainable techniques has been to throw away the plough, the ultimate symbol of the farmer. Ploughing aerates the soil, helping rot weeds and crop residues. But it can also damage soil fertility and increase erosion. Now millions of Latin American farmers have decided it isn’t worth the effort.

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A third of Argentina’s farms no longer use the plough. instead, they fight weeds by planting winter crops, such as black oats, or by spraying a biodegradable herbicide such as glyphosate. The farmers saw results in a short time – reduced costs, richer soils, bigger grain yields and increased income, says Lauro Bassi of EPAGRI, the agricultural research institute in Santa Catarina state, southern Brazil, which has been promoting the idea.

Zero-tillage also benefits the planet in general. Unploughed soils hang on to carbon that would otherwise escape into the air as carbon dioxide when organic matter rots. “A one-hectare field left unploughed can absorb up to a tonne of carbon every year,” says Pretty, “making soils a vital element in preventing global warming.”

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Sustainable agriculture is no magic bullet for feeding the world. lt is an approach rather than a blueprint. Small farms with low yields stand to gain the most and agribusiness the least. But it does offer an alternative for the millions of small farms that have plenty of hands to work the land, but not the skills or financial resources to adopt conventional mechanised farming.

Questions 14-18

Complete each sentence with the correct ending A-I from the box below.

14. Napier grass …….

15. The plant called Striga …….

16. Growing single crops …….

17. Ploughing the land …….

18. Sowing black oats …….

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A. reduces losses due to plant diseases.

B. can lead to soil erosion.

C. causes major financial losses.

D. increases soil fertility.

E. discourages the growth of weeds.

F. helps to retain carbon dioxide.

G. destroys harmful insect larvae.

H. helps prevent global warming.

I. encourages pests to breed.

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Questions 19-26

Choose NO MORE THAN THREE WORDS for each answer.

AREA	STRATEGY	BENEFITS TO FARMERS
East Africa	19………….. with food crop.	Lower costs Higher yields
20…………..	Growing mixed crops together.	Higher yields
Madagascar	Transplanting seedlings earlier. Leaving paddy fields unflooded. Replacing chemical fertilisers with 21…………..	Higher yields
Cuba	Reducing 22………….. Using 23………….. instead of farm vehicles. Growing mixed crops together.	Yields doubled Citizens’ 24………….. increased.
Latin America	Zero-tillage	Lower costs Improved 25………….. Higher yields Higher 26…………..