According to a report on UK food production from the University of Leeds, UK, 85 percent of the country’s total land area is associated with meat and dairy production. That supplies 80 percent of what is consumed, so even covering the whole country in livestock farms wouldn’t allow us to cover all our meat and dairy needs.
根据英国利兹大学（University of Leeds）一份有关英国食品生产的报告，英国85%的土地面积与肉类和奶制品生产有关。这提供了80%的消费量，所以即使覆盖全国的畜牧场也不能满足我们所有的肉类和奶制品需求。
Brexit is seen by some as an opportunity to reverse a recent trend towards the UK importing food. The country produces only about 60 percent of the food it eats, down from almost three-quarters in the late 1980s. A move back to self-sufficiency, the argument goes, would boost the farming industry, political sovereignty and even the nations health, Sounds great but how feasible is this vision?
英国脱欧被一些人视为扭转近期英国进口食品趋势的机会。这个国家只生产了它所吃食物的60%左右，低于80年代末的近四分之三。有人认为，恢复自给自足将促进农业、政治主权乃至国家健康，听起来不错，但这一设想有多可行？
With the global population predicted to hit close to 10 billion by 2050, and forecasts that agricultural production in one regions will need to nearly double to keep pace, food security is increasingly making headlines In the UK, it has become a big talking point recently too, for a rather particular reason: Brexit.
据预测，到2050年，全球人口将接近100亿，而且有人预测某个地区的农业生产需要增加近一倍才能跟上步伐，因此粮食安全日益成为英国的头条新闻，最近它也成为一个大话题，原因相当特殊：英国脱欧。
There are many caveats to those figures, but they are still grave. To become much more self-sufficient. The UK would need to drastically reduce its consumption of animal foods, and probably also farm more intensively meaning fewer green fields and more factory style production.
对这些数字有许多警告，但仍然很严重。变得更加自给自足。英国将需要大幅度减少动物性食品的消费，可能还需要更密集地耕种，这意味着更少的绿地和更多的工厂式生产。
But switching to a mainly plant-based diet wouldn’t help. There is a good reason why the UK is dominated by animal husbandry, most of its terrain doesn’t have the right soil or climate to grow crops on commercial basis. Just 25 percent of the country’s land is suitable for crop-growing, most of which is already occupied by arable fields. Even if we converted all the suitable land to fields of fruit and vegetable which would involve taking out all the nature reserves and removing thousands of people from their homes-we would achieve only a 30 percent boost in crop production.
但改用以植物为主要成分的饮食也无济于事。英国以畜牧业为主有一个很好的理由，它的大部分地形没有合适的土壤或气候来种植商业作物。全国只有25%的土地适合种植农作物，其中大部分已经被耕地占用。即使我们把所有合适的土地都改成果蔬田，包括把所有的自然保护区都撤了，把成千上万的人从家里赶出去，我们的农作物产量也只能提高30%。
Just 23 percent of the fruit and vegetables consumed in the UK are currently home-grown, so even with the most extreme measures we could meet only 30 percent of our fresh produce needs. That is before we look for the space to grow the grains, sugars, seeds and oils that provide us with the vast bulk of our current calorie intake.
英国目前食用的水果和蔬菜只有23%是本土种植的，因此即使采取最极端的措施，我们也只能满足30%的新鲜农产品需求。那是在我们寻找种植谷物、糖、种子和油的空间之前，这些食物为我们提供了目前摄入的大量热量。
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