生物燃料－从牲畜口中夺食？

8年前，中国的专家治国论者提出了一个如何处理政府巨量玉米储备的计划，因为这些储备就要变质。

Eight years ago, China's technocrats came up with an idea for what to do with the government's vast stockpile of corn reserves, a stockpile that was going stale.

该计划的内容是将玉米转化为淀粉、甜料或酒精，而酒精可以与汽油混合，为汽车提供动力。此举将带来有价值的产品，并可能减少中国对石油的依赖。

The plan was to transform the corn into starch, sweeteners or ethanol, which could be blended with gasoline to run cars. The move would create valuable products and potentially reduce China's oil dependency.

现在，人们越来越担心，建立生化和生物燃料行业的工作进展得太快了。储备的变质玉米已经用尽，快速发展的工业加工商，与依靠玉米作为牲畜饲料的农民之间的争夺越发激烈。

Now there is growing concern that creating biochemical and biofuels industries worked too well. The stale corn reserves are used up and there is increasing competition for fresh supplies between rapidly growing industrial processors and livestock farmers who rely on it as feed for animals.

几个省份已下达强制命令，要求使用的燃料中包含10%的酒精，而且中国已经定下了2020年生物燃料在运输能源中占15%的目标。去年，中国用330万吨玉米生产了100万吨的酒精。

Several provinces have made mandatory the use of a fuel with 10 per cent ethanol content and China has set a target of meeting 15 per cent of its transportation energy needs with biofuels by 2020. Using 3.3m tonnes of corn, it produced 1m tonnes of ethanol last year.

中信嘉华银行(Citic Ka Wah)中国业务首席经济师廖群表示，去年10月以来，不断上涨的食品和粮食价格，已经推高了通胀水平。4月份，食品价格指数上涨7.1%，将通胀推高至3%，为近两年来的高点。

Rising food and grain prices have propelled higher levels of inflation since last October, says Liao Qun, chief China economist for Citic Ka Wah bank. In April, the food price index rose 7.1 per cent, pushing inflation near a two-year high of 3 per cent.

对玉米的需求，使作为全球第二大玉米生产国的中国，自90年代中期以来首次在2005年又重返国际市场。去年的进口量仅有7万吨，但到2020年时，进口总量可能迅速增长至2400万吨，达到与世界第一大玉米进口国日本相当的水平。

The search for corn sent China, the world's second-biggest corn producer, back into international markets in 2005 for the first time since the mid-1990s. Only 70,000 tonnes were imported last year but that amount is likely to soar to 24m tonnes by 2020. That level would match the current intake of Japan, the world's largest corn importer.

中国国家粮油信息中心(China National Grain and Oils Information Centre)市场监测处处长王晓辉已表示，中国的玉米出口将在2008年9月之前的一年内缩减60%，至200万吨，同时，进口可能增至50万吨。中国去年玉米产量约为1.43亿吨。

Wang Xiaohui, a director at the China National Grain and Oils Information Centre, has said that China's corn exports might shrink 60 per cent to 2m tonnes in the year to the end of September 2008, while imports could rise to 500,000 tonnes. China produced about 143m tonnes of corn last year.

中粮集团(Cofco)副总裁于旭波(Patrick Yu)警告称，中国可能会鼓励工业玉米用户从海外进口，以减轻食品安全方面的担忧，并帮助缓解国内通胀压力。

Patrick Yu, vice-president of Cofco, China's largest crops processor, warns that China's industrial corn users might be encouraged to source overseas to allay food security fears and help ease domestic inflation.

政府已停止批准新的以玉米为原料的酒精工厂，同时正在开发使用非粮食作物生产的生物燃料作为替代品。

The government has halted approvals for new corn-based ethanol plants and is developing alternative biofuels using non-food crops