Nowadays, the increase in the prices of agricultural products is one of the greatest concerns of the people and the government. The government has announced a series of policies(政策) to prevent the prices from rising further. Rising housing prices is still a big concern for the people, but since farm products are needed every day, the increase in their prices has made life very difficult for them.
Many people may think the increase will help farmers. But have higher prices of farm products really benefited the farmers?
Take the increase in vegetable prices in the first half of this year for example. Though natural disasters such as droughts and spring frost did not cause the prices of farm products to increase greatly—in fact, prices of some products did not increase at all—vegetables have become dearer by as much as 20 percent compared to that of last year. This means only a small part (or even none) of the extra money that city people have paid to buy farm products has gone to the farmers. The extra cost actually has gone to middlemen.
As the fact shows, just increasing prices of farm products will have negative influence on the entire economy. On one hand, the price increase has created some abnormal phenomena, which hurts farmers’ interests. On the other hand, resources will enter the agriculture because of the high price of farm products, which would finally create negative effect on the whole economy.
In such a case, it would be better to leave the market to decide the prices instead of raising farm products’ prices to protect the interests of farmers. Actually, such a way will be better for farmers in the long run.
小题1:What does the author mainly want to tell us by writing the passage?
A．Farmers benefit a lot from the price increase.
B．Price increase has not helped farmers.
C．We should be sorry for farmers.
D．Price increase has a bad effect on economy.小题2: Many people think the increase in the prices of farm products benefits ______ .
A． nobody
B．the country
C．middlemen
D．farmers小题3:The following statements are true EXCEPT ______ .
A．the government has done something to prevent the prices from rising further
B．it is better for farmers to leave the market to decide the prices in the long run
C．natural disasters did not cause the prices of farm products to increase greatly
D．rising housing prices has made life very difficult for people小题4:What is probably the author’s attitude to raising the farm products’ prices?
A．Negative.
B．Indifferent.(漠不关心的)
C．Enthusiastic.
D．Positive.
