通過能夠?qū)崟r(shí)監(jiān)測(cè)生豬狀態(tài)的語音識(shí)別和智能傳感器等技術(shù)，阿里巴巴希望能夠推動(dòng)*的生豬養(yǎng)殖水平向*水平看齊。

Photo credit: Getty Images

1

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

人工智能正走進(jìn)農(nóng)場(chǎng)：幫助確保生豬的活動(dòng)量，產(chǎn)出瘦肉培根，并提高糧食產(chǎn)量。

Photo credit: Getty Images

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(wù)更加高效地運(yùn)行。現(xiàn)在，阿里巴巴正使用同樣的技術(shù)——包括語音識(shí)別和智能傳感器——來監(jiān)控生豬的活動(dòng)，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(nóng)牧業(yè)是戰(zhàn)略性行業(yè)，關(guān)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(yīng)國和消費(fèi)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?yàn)閮r(jià)格不景氣，飼料價(jià)格高，美國豬生產(chǎn)商已經(jīng)歷了一年多的經(jīng)濟(jì)困難時(shí)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(jià)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

2

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(gè)把世界上一些*的技術(shù)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(nóng)業(yè)合作社Fonterra利用數(shù)據(jù)分析來為奶罐車隊(duì)設(shè)計(jì)路線，而*的“軟件即服務(wù)”公司Salesforce，正把更多的農(nóng)業(yè)集團(tuán)攬為自己的客戶。

③ bear on 壓迫;與…有關(guān);對(duì)…有影響;瞄準(zhǔn)

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

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(yīng)用到餐桌?！钡俜?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(jī)的例子，這些拖拉機(jī)能在一個(gè)部件出現(xiàn)故障時(shí)報(bào)警，知曉哪一排種植物從玉米換成了大豆，管理供應(yīng)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(shù)專員史蒂夫-阿利森預(yù)測(cè)，在線學(xué)習(xí)將發(fā)生重大變革。

Photo credit: Getty Images

3

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(shù)和智能傳感器監(jiān)測(cè)每一頭生豬的日?；顒?dòng)和健康狀態(tài)——這些數(shù)據(jù)經(jīng)過分析轉(zhuǎn)化為一份實(shí)時(shí)報(bào)告：比如，為那些懶散的生豬安排更多鍛煉來燃燒脂肪和長(zhǎng)肉，或者對(duì)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(xiàng)技術(shù)還能監(jiān)測(cè)到生病的豬，收集數(shù)據(jù)幫助農(nóng)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(jìn)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(shí)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(yīng)設(shè)立在銹病率發(fā)生高的地區(qū)。

Photo credit: Getty Images

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(nóng)業(yè)大腦”能夠讓每頭母豬生產(chǎn)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(chǎn)小豬數(shù)量提高到32，讓*生豬養(yǎng)殖行業(yè)水平與*進(jìn)的生豬養(yǎng)殖*的水平看齊——在美國輸華豬肉的關(guān)稅提高之際，這樣的提升顯然有益于消費(fèi)者供應(yīng)。

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(shí)主義”，認(rèn)為英國在經(jīng)歷伊拉克和阿富汗戰(zhàn)爭(zhēng)后，應(yīng)當(dāng)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(nóng)場(chǎng)犬最近承擔(dān)起豬媽媽的職責(zé)，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(gè)說法為教會(huì)提供了*借口，不用負(fù)起責(zé)任去幫助千千萬萬的囚犯。

Photo credit: Getty Images

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(nóng)業(yè)集團(tuán)特驅(qū)集團(tuán)(Tequ Group)正利用阿里巴巴的技術(shù)，期望在2020年達(dá)到養(yǎng)殖1000萬頭豬的目標(biāo)，“但現(xiàn)實(shí)普通的自動(dòng)管理系統(tǒng)將無法應(yīng)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(qū)集團(tuán)董事長(zhǎng)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(dāng)蘋果推出iPad的時(shí)候，大多數(shù)人還不知道它是干什么用的，更別提預(yù)測(cè)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(rèn)同這一說法：“我們*的問題是，地球上還會(huì)多出數(shù)十億人，我們?cè)撊绾我砸环N可持續(xù)的方式來喂飽他們？沒有技術(shù)的引入，這幾乎是不可能實(shí)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(xiàng)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。