The UN's agency responsible for relieving hunger is drawing up plans to ration food aid in response to the spiralling cost of agricultural commodities.

    负责饥民救助的联合国世界粮食计划署(UN's World Food Programme)正草拟定量配给食品的救援计划，以应对农产品价格不断攀升的状况。

    The World Food Programme is holding crisis talks to decide what aid to halt if new donations do not arrive in the short term.
    
    世界粮食计划署正进行紧急会谈，以便决定如果短期内没有新的捐助，应暂停哪种救助。

    Josette Sheeran, WFP executive director, told the Financial Times that the agency would look at “cutting the food rations or even the number of people reached” if donors did not provide more money.

    世界粮食计划署执行干事约塞特•施林(Josette Sheeran)向英国《金融时报》表示，如果捐赠者不提供更多的资金，该机构将考虑“削减食品定量甚至发放对象数量”。

    The WFP crisis talks come as the body sees the emergence of a “new area of hunger” in developing countries where even middle-class, urban people are being “priced out of the food market” because of rising food prices.

    世界粮食计划署举行紧急会谈之时，正值该机构发现发展中国家出现一个“新的饥饿领域”，即由于食品价格不断上涨，连中产阶层城市居民都正因“价格过高而被挤出食品市场”。

    The warning suggests that the price jump in agricultural commodities – such as wheat, corn, rice and soyabeans – is having a wider impact than previously thought, hitting countries that have previously largely escaped hunger.

    上述警告表明，农产品——如小麦、玉米、大米和大豆——价格飙升，正带来比预想更为广泛的影响，给那些原已基本摆脱饥饿的国家带来冲击。

    The main focus of the WFP to date has been to provide aid in areas where food was unavailable. But the programme now faces having to help countries where the price of food, rather than shortages, is the problem. 

    迄今为止世界粮食计划署的重点一直是为那些无法获得食品的地区提供援助。但该机构目前面临着不得不为那些存在食品价格问题（而非短缺问题）的国家提供帮助的局面。

    Ms Sheeran said that in response to rising food costs, families in developing countries were moving in some cases from three meals a day to just one, or dropping a diverse diet to rely on one staple food.

    施林表示，为了应对食品价格不断上涨的局面，某些情况下，发展中国家家庭正将一日三餐变为一餐，或者放弃多样化的饮食，转而依赖一种主要食品。

    In response to increasing food prices, Egypt has widened its food rationing system for the first time in two decades while Pakistan has reintroduced a ration card system that was abandoned in the mid-1980s.

    为应对食品价格不断上涨，埃及政府20年来首次放宽其食品配给体系，而巴基斯坦则重新推出了上世纪80年代中期废弃的定量供应卡制度。

    Other countries such as China and Russia are imposing price controls while others, such as Argentina and Vietnam, are enforcing foreign sales taxes or export bans. Importing countries are lowering their tariffs.

    中国和俄罗斯等国正实施价格管制，而阿根廷和越南等其它国家则实行外国销售税或出口限制。（食品）进口国则在降低进口关税。