通過能夠實時監(jiān)測生豬狀態(tài)的語音識別和智能傳感器等技術，阿里巴巴希望能夠推動*的生豬養(yǎng)殖水平向*水平看齊。

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Artificial intelligence is coming to the farmyard: helping ensure active pigs, lean bacon and improved crop yields.

人工智能正走進農場：幫助確保生豬的活動量，產出瘦肉培根，并提高糧食產量。

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Alibaba, the Chinese tech giant that is using artificial intelligence to help cities and its own ecommerce operation run more efficiently, is taking the same technologies — including voice recognition and smart sensors — to monitorhogs’ activity and prune costs at apple orchards.

*科技巨頭阿里巴巴(Alibaba)利用人工智能來幫助城市及阿里巴巴的電商業(yè)務更加高效地運行?，F(xiàn)在，阿里巴巴正使用同樣的技術——包括語音識別和智能傳感器——來監(jiān)控生豬的活動，削減蘋果園的成本。

“Agriculture and animal husbandry industry is a strategic sector and matters to the lives of billions across China,” said Simon Hu, president of Alibaba Cloud. The country is the world’s biggest supplier and consumer of pork.

“農牧業(yè)是戰(zhàn)略性行業(yè)，關系到*十多億人的生活，”阿里云(Alibaba Cloud)總裁胡曉明說。*是世界*的豬肉供應國和消費國。

① hog [h?g] n. 豬;貪食者 vt. 拱起;多占

例句：U. S. hog producers have already been struggling financially for more than a year due to poor prices and high feed costs. 因為價格不景氣，飼料價格高，美國豬生產商已經歷了一年多的經濟困難時期。

② prune [pru?n] v. 減少;修剪;刪去 n. 梅干

例句：The Philippine government has urged the return of gems worth more than $310m, and including a Burmese ruby said to be as big as a prune. 菲律賓*已敦促將價值超過3.1億美元的寶石歸還給馬科斯夫人，其中包括一顆據(jù)說大如李子的緬甸紅寶石。

Screenshot: et.aliyun.com

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However, it is far from the only company bringing some of the world’s newest technologies to bear on one of its most ancient industries. Fonterra, the New Zealand-based dairy farming co-operative, is using data analytics to route its fleet of milk tankers while Salesforce, the biggest “software as a service” company, is counting more farming groups among its clients.

然而，阿里巴巴絕不是*一個把世界上一些*的技術引入世界上最古老的行業(yè)之一的企業(yè)。位于新西蘭的乳品農業(yè)合作社Fonterra利用數(shù)據(jù)分析來為奶罐車隊設計路線，而*的“軟件即服務”公司Salesforce，正把更多的農業(yè)集團攬為自己的客戶。

③ bear on 壓迫;與…有關;對…有影響;瞄準

例句：His story does not bear on the question. 他的故事和這個問題無關。

Screenshot: fonterra.com

“Agtech goes from the seed in the ground all the way to the dinner table,” said Tiffani Bova, who goes by the title of innovation evangelist at Salesforce. She lists smart tractors that send an alert when a part is faulty and know at which row to switch from corn to soyabeans, through to managing the supply chain.

“人工智能科技從土地里的種子一路應用到餐桌。”蒂法妮?博瓦(Tiffani Bova)說，她在Salesforce的職位是創(chuàng)新宣傳大使。她舉出了智能拖拉機的例子，這些拖拉機能在一個部件出現(xiàn)故障時報警，知曉哪一排種植物從玉米換成了大豆，管理供應鏈。

④ evangelist [?'v?n(d)?(?)l?st] n. 福音傳道者;推廣專員

例句：Steve Allison, a technical evangelist at Adobe, the software company, predicts significant changes in online learning. 軟件公司Adobe技術專員史蒂夫-阿利森預測，在線學習將發(fā)生重大變革。

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Alibaba is using AI technologies and smart sensors to monitor each hog’s activity and state of health — data that will then be analysed and turned into a real-time report card for the pigs: more exercise for slothful ones that need to burn fat and grow more meat, say, or increasing feed for pregnantsows.

阿里巴巴正利用人工智能技術和智能傳感器監(jiān)測每一頭生豬的日常活動和健康狀態(tài)——這些數(shù)據(jù)經過分析轉化為一份實時報告：比如，為那些懶散的生豬安排更多鍛煉來燃燒脂肪和長肉，或者對懷孕的母豬增加飼喂量。

The technology will also be able to detect sick hogs and collect data allowing the farmer to create the optimum environment for the herd, crops ororchards.

這項技術還能監(jiān)測到生病的豬，收集數(shù)據(jù)幫助農民為牲畜、糧食或者果園創(chuàng)造最理想的環(huán)境。

⑤ slothful ['sl??θf?l] adj. 懶惰的;遲鈍的

例句：Designed to improve people's health, the contest saw the most slothful people transformed into the most powerful athletes. 該比賽旨在促進人們的身體健康，讓人們“從懶漢變成健兒”。

⑥ sow [s??] v. 播種;散布 n. 母豬

例句： Tiger cubs sit in their feeding pen with a sow, who has become their surrogate mother, at the Sriracha Tiger Zoo in Pattaya, Thailand. 在泰國芭提雅的拉差龍虎園里，虎寶寶們與一只母豬臥在籠子里，這只母豬就是它們的臨時媽媽。

⑦ orchard ['??t??d] n. 果園;果樹林

例句：Orchards should not be established in areas with high rust-incidence. 果園不應設立在銹病率發(fā)生高的地區(qū)。

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Alibaba reckons its self-styled “agricultural brain” could lead to three more piglets being born per sow and cut the newborn death rate. That would lift the pigs per sow per year to 32, bringing China in line with advanced pig-farming countries — a handy increase in supply for consumers at a time of higher tariffs on US pork.

阿里巴巴提出，其所謂的“ET農業(yè)大腦”能夠讓每頭母豬生產的存活的小豬多3頭，并且降低初生小豬的非自然死亡率。這將使母豬年均生產小豬數(shù)量提高到32，讓*生豬養(yǎng)殖行業(yè)水平與*進的生豬養(yǎng)殖*的水平看齊——在美國輸華豬肉的關稅提高之際，這樣的提升顯然有益于消費者供應。

⑧ self-styled ['self'staild] adj. 自詡的，自封的

例句：So naive too was a self-styled "realism" that said post Iraq and Afghanistan Britain should avoid all overseas entanglements. 同樣天真的是一種自封的“現(xiàn)實主義”，認為英國在經歷伊拉克和阿富汗戰(zhàn)爭后，應當避免所有海外糾葛。

⑨ piglet ['p?ɡl?t] n. 小豬;豬仔

例句：A giant farm dog and a tiny piglet in Germany cuddle up as if they were family after the baby pig was abandoned by its own mother. 德國的一只大型農場犬最近承擔起豬媽媽的職責，收養(yǎng)了一只被母親遺棄的迷你小豬崽。

⑩ handy ['h?nd?] adj. 便利的;就近的;容易取得的

例句：That kind of interpretation would be handy for relieving the church of its call to aid millions upon millions of prisoners. 這個說法為教會提供了*借口，不用負起責任去幫助千千萬萬的囚犯。

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Tequ Group, a Sichuan-based farm, is banking on the Alibaba technology to reach its goal of breeding 10m pigs by 2020: “a scale that no ordinary automation system could cope with, let alone a human system”, said chairman Degen Wang.

位于四川的農業(yè)集團特驅集團(Tequ Group)正利用阿里巴巴的技術，期望在2020年達到養(yǎng)殖1000萬頭豬的目標，“但現(xiàn)實普通的自動管理系統(tǒng)將無法應付如此宏大的規(guī)模，更不用說以人手操作的管理系統(tǒng)，”特驅集團董事長王德根說。

? let alone 更不用說;放任;不打擾

例句：When Apple launched the iPad less than a year ago, most people did not know what it was for, let alone how many the company would sell. 不到一年前，當蘋果推出iPad的時候，大多數(shù)人還不知道它是干什么用的，更別提預測它的銷量了。

Screenshot: et.aliyun.com

Ms Bova concurred. “The biggest problem we have is there will be billions more people on the planet and how do we feed them in a sustainable way？ It’s almost impossible without tech stepping in.”

博瓦認同這一說法：“我們*的問題是，地球上還會多出數(shù)十億人，我們該如何以一種可持續(xù)的方式來喂飽他們？沒有技術的引入，這幾乎是不可能實現(xiàn)的?！?/p>

? concur [k?n'k??] vi. 同意;一致;互助

例句：I concur it is a formidable challenge, but not so much that we cannot at least try to find ways to improve it. 我同意這是一項艱巨挑戰(zhàn)，但也不至于讓我們甚至不能做出嘗試，想辦法改善現(xiàn)狀。