🇺🇸 영어 원문
In the west of India, the mountainous region of Mahabaleshwar is home to most of India’s strawberry farms. An altitude of more than 1,000m (3,280ft) gifts the region a long cool growing season between November and March. But that doesn’t mean farmers have an easy life – it’s a labour intensive and risky way to make a living.
“If you have a field full of strawberries and sudden heavy rains hit, the entire crop is ruined and we have to bear massive losses,” says Sheetal Danavle who, with her husband, grows strawberries on half of their three-acre farm. Strawberry plants have to be replaced every season and are not grown from seed. Instead, farmers buy young plants from suppliers. For Danavle, on her small farm, that’s an outlay of $2,500 (£1,900) every year.
“If the season goes well, you can earn double your investment. But the climate makes it a huge gamble,” she says. Thousands of farmers grow strawberries across the Mahabaleshwar region, making the fruit one of the most profitable horticultural crops in western India. Despite that success the industry still relies on varieties that are imported from California, Florida, Italy and Spain, as no one in India has developed a domestic plant.
It can take 10 to 15 years for breeders in the US and Europe to develop a top quality fruit and they patent their varieties. “We import the certified mother plant from the breeder abroad,” says Nelson Sequeira, the founder and director of Tara Farms Fresh, a licensed strawberry propagator. Once imported the plants have to go through a government quarantine, before they are planted in a nursery. There the mother plant produces daughter plants and those are then sold to farmers.
“One single imported mother plant becomes an engine. That single mother plant will shoot out runners to yield an average of 20 daughter plants – with some advanced growers pushing that up to 30 or 40,” says Sequeira. “The plants do not touch the ground. We use large industrial pipes split completely in half to form long, rounded gutter containers,” Sequeira explains. “Instead of soil, we pack these containers with a specialized coco-peat substrate derived entirely from coconut husk. We then integrate a highly precise drip-irrigation and fogging system to control micro-climates.”
But work at Mahatma Phule Krishi Vidyapeeth (MPKV), an agricultural university in Maharashtra, might change that. MPKV has partnered with the Bhabha Atomic Research Centre (BARC) on a breeding experiment. Researchers are using controlled, low-dose gamma irradiation on plant tissues to induce stable genetic mutations. “The goal is to fast-track the development of India’s first indigenous strawberry variety.”
🇰🇷 한국어 요약
안녕하세요, 여러분! 오늘은 인도의 딸기 농사에 관한 흥미로운 이야기를 가져왔어요. 인도의 마하발레슈와르 지역은 인도의 딸기 농장이 가장 많은 곳인데, 해발 1,000m 이상의 높은 산지 덕분에 11 월부터 3 월까지 시원한 성장기를 가질 수 있어요. 하지만 농부들에게는 쉽지 않은 일이죠. 갑자기 많은 비가 내리면 작물이 모두 망가져 큰 손실을 입기도 해요. 그래서 딸기 농사는 큰 ‘도박’과 같다고 해요.
현재 인도는 미국의 캘리포니아나 유럽의 품종을 수입해서 사용하고 있어요. 인디언이 직접 만든 품종이 없기 때문이죠. 미국이나 유럽에서는 품종 개발에 10 년에서 15 년이 걸리고 특허까지 내기 때문에, 인도는 매년 외화를 써서 묘목을 사야 해요. 하지만 이제 상황이 변할지도 몰라요. 마하트마 푸울레 농업대학교와 원자력 연구소가 협력해서, 감마선 조사를 이용해 인도의 고유한 딸기 품종을 개발하고 있거든요. 과학 기술로 농업의 미래를 바꾸려는 노력, 정말 멋지지 않나요?
🔑 핵심 단어 (Vocabulary)
- Labor-intensive – 노동 집약적인 – It’s a labour intensive and risky way to make a living.
- Gamble – 도박, 큰 모험 – But the climate makes it a huge gamble.
- Horticultural – 원예의 – making the fruit one of the most profitable horticultural crops.
- Indigenous – 토착의, 고유한 – India’s first indigenous strawberry variety.
- Quarantine – 검역 – Once imported the plants have to go through a government quarantine.
- Propagator – 증식자, 번식 전문 업체 – licensed strawberry propagator.
- Substrate – 기질, 재배 토대 – specialized coco-peat substrate derived entirely from coconut husk.
- Irrigation – 관개, 물대기 – highly precise drip-irrigation and fogging system.
- Mutation – 돌연변이 – induce stable genetic mutations.
- Irradiation – 조사, 방사선 조사 – controlled, low-dose gamma irradiation on plant tissues.
🔗 원문 링크
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c8x274xxxpwo?at_medium=RSS&at_campaign=rss