Scientists have worked for 12 years to develop what they call Green Super Rice. 
12年来科学家一直致力于开发一种“绿色超级稻”。

They say several varieties should be available to farmers about two years from now in parts of Asia and Africa.
他们表示再需两年时间亚非部分地区的农民就可种上数种绿色超级稻。

The "green" in Green Super Rice means environmentally friendly. 
绿色超级稻中的“绿色”指的是这种稻子有利于环境。

Researchers say it will produce at least as much grain as other rice plants but with fewer inputs. 
研究人员表示这种稻子能以较少的投入收获至少跟其它稻类作物一样多的产量。

"Super" means the rice is designed to better resist droughts, floods, salty water, insects and disease.
而“超级”则是指这种稻子具有更强的抗旱抗洪、抗盐水、抗病虫害的性能。

The developers of Green Super Rice did not use genetic engineering. 
绿色超级稻的培育者没有使用基因工程技术。

Instead, they mated hundreds of varieties of rice. 
相反，他们把数百种稻子进行杂交。

That way they avoided the costs as well as the problems connected with getting permission to plant genetically engineered crops.
这样他们避免了高昂的成本，也不用费心争取种植转基因作物的许可。

The project involves the world's largest rice collection, the International Rice Research Institute in the Philippines. 
参与该项目的有全球最大的稻种收藏机构菲律宾国际水稻研究所（IRRI）。

It also involves the Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences. 
包含中国农业科学院。

And it includes farmers in eight countries in Asia and eight in Africa.
以及亚洲八国和非洲八国的农民。

Modern rice plants produce two to three times more grain than was possible before the 1960s. 
现代稻类作物的产量是20世纪60年代之前有可能获得的最大产量的两三倍。

But they also require large amounts of water, chemical fertilizers and pesticides.
但同时也需投入大量的水、化肥与杀虫剂。

In the 60s, the International Rice Research Institute developed "miracle rice" for Asia. 
上世纪60年代，国际水稻研究所为亚洲培育了一种“奇迹稻”。

Scientists created high-yielding crops that produced bigger harvests in what became known as the Green Revolution. 
科学家发明的高产出的稻子，在后来所知的绿色革命中创下了大丰收。

It prevented widespread hunger.
从而阻止了普遍的饥荒。

But critics say modern rice plants require too much water and too much use of chemicals that can hurt the environment. 
但批评者称现代稻子需要太多的水，要用太多有害环境的化学品。

And farmers may be too poor to buy chemical fertilizers and pesticides.
而且农民可能太穷，买不起化肥和杀虫剂。

Anna McClung heads a rice-breeding center for the United States Agriculture Department. 
安娜·麦克朗是美国农业部下属水稻培植中心的负责人。

She says combining many different genes into one plant without genetic engineering requires a lot of plant breeding. 
她表示，在不采用基因工程技术的情况下将许多不同的基因植入一个植株需要大量的植物培植实验。

Ms. McClung praises the researchers working on Green Super Rice.
麦克朗称赞了培育绿色超级稻的研究人员。

"The magnitude of what they are doing is really quite unique and tremendous."
他们正在从事的工作的重要性真的非常独特且巨大。

Another rice researcher, Jan Leach at Colorado State University, says scientists can find valuable qualities hidden in the rice genome. 
科罗拉多州立大学的另一位水稻研究员简·利奇称科学家能够发现隐藏于水稻基因组中的有价值的特性。

A genome contains all of the genetic information about an organism.
基因组内包含了有关该生物的所有基因信息。

"Many of the traits are present, but they are not turned on until you get them into the right genetic background, or sometimes in the right environment."
许多特性尽管都存在，但除非你将它们置于恰当的基因背景、有时是恰当的环境中，否则它们的作用便无法显示出来。

Researchers on the Green Super Rice project continue to combine desirable traits into new varieties to help farmers produce more with less.
绿色超级稻项目中的研究人员将继续把符合人们需求的稻子特性组合成新的稻子种类，以帮助农民以较少的投入收获较多的谷物。