(C)

Lindsay Renwick, the mayor of Deniliquin, a country town in New South Wales, misses the constant whir (嗡嗡声) of the rice mill whose giant fans dried the rice. The Deniliquin mill, the largest rice mill in the Southern Hemisphere (南半球), once processed enough grain to meet the needs of 20 million people globally. But six years of drought have had a destructive effect, reducing Australia’s rice crop by 98 percent and leading to the mothballing of the mill last December.

Drought affects every agriculture industry based in Australia, not just rice – from sheep farming, the country’s other backbone, to the cultivation of grapes for wine, the fastest-growing crop there, with that expansion often coming at the expense of rice. The drought’s effect on rice has produced the greatest impact on the rest of the world, so far. It is one factor contributing to skyrocketing prices, and many scientists believe it is among the earliest signs that a warming planet is starting to affect food production.

Researchers are looking for solutions to global rice shortages – for example, rice that blooms earlier in the day, when it is cooler, to fight against global warming. Rice plants that happen to bloom on hot days are less likely to produce grains of rice, a difficulty that is already starting to emerge in inland areas of China and other Asian countries as temperatures begin to climb. “There will be problems very soon unless we have new varieties of rice in place,” said Reiner Wassmann, climate change director at the International Rice Research Institute (IRRI). The recent reports on climate change carried a warning that could make the news even worse: that existing models for the effects of climate change on agriculture did not yet include newer findings that global warming could reduce rainfall and make it more variable.

Yet the effects of climate change are not uniformly bad for rice. Rising concentrations (浓度) of carbon dioxide, the main greenhouse gas, can actually help rice – although the effect reduces or disappears if the plants face unnecessary heat, inadequate water, severe pollution or other stresses. Still, the flexibility of farmers here has persuaded some climate experts that, particularly in developed countries, the effects of climate change may be relieved, if not completely avoided. “I’m not as negative as most people,” said Will Steffen, director of the Fenner School of Environment and Society at Australian National University. “Farmers are learning how to do things differently.”

Meanwhile, changes like the use of water to grow wine grapes instead of rice carry their own costs, as the developing world is discovering. “Rice is an essential food,” said Graeme Haley, the general manager of the town of Deniliquin. “Wine is not.”

73. By “the mothballing of the mill” (in Paragraph 1) the author most probably means the mill is ______. 

   A. kept unprocessed     B. left unused 

   C. being entirely restored  D. being pushed round

74. To find the ways to cope with the global rice shortage, researchers are ______. 

   A. seeking new types of rice which could bloom at a lower temperature

   B. building greenhouses which could provide more heat for rice to grow 

   C. studying climate changes in China which may affect rice growing in Asia

   D. looking for alternative agriculture industries which may take the place of rice

75. Which of the following can be learned from the passage?

   A. Rice plants are fond of higher temperature in the process of growing. 

   B. Global warming has shown few signs of influence on agriculture.

   C. Rice prices are rising steadily owing to the crop failure in Australia.

   D. Global warming may contribute to more complicated weather conditions.

76. It can be inferred from the passage that ______. 

   A. Australia is the largest rice producing country around the world

   B. most people look on the bright side of the flexibility of farmers

   C. climate changes have simply brought negative effects to people’s lives

   D. wine grape cultivation has threatened the rice production in Australia

77. Which of the following best serves as the title of the passage?

   A. Rice shortage and wine boom  B. Drought, the enemy of rice production 

   C. Rice crisis and its solution         D. Rice issue, a focus of the public attention

真相大白：

73.B   74.A   75.D  76.D   77.C

步步为赢：

73.解析：由第一段最后一句可知大米产量因干旱减少了90%，因此磨坊的工作也大幅下降，不被使用，故选B。

74.解析：由第三段第一句可知，研究人员考虑提前水稻在白天的开花时间，即在更凉爽的时间开花，故选A。

75.解析：由第三段第二句可知，大米喜阴，故A错。由第二段可知，全球变暖严重影响农业及畜牧业，可能带来粮食危机，故B错。由第二段第三句可知，大米价格飞涨，故C错。由第三段最后一句可知全球变暖还会影响降雨量，故选D。

76.解析：文中并未提及澳大利亚是全球最大的水稻生产国，故A错。第四段第二句指出仅一些专家对农民们的灵活性持积极态度，故B错。由第四段第二句可知，温室气体有助于水稻生长，故C错。由第五段第一句可知葡萄种植正取代水稻种植，故选D。

77.解析：本题是一道综合概括题，由全文内容可知，本文核心内容为全球变暖给水稻种植带来的影响，故选C。

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