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For much of the 20th century, milk was a simple part of daily life in the U.S., as farmers raised cows, milkmen delivered bottle

admin2022-11-16  149
问题     For much of the 20th century, milk was a simple part of daily life in the U.S., as farmers raised cows, milkmen delivered bottles and children drank it at school. But those days are fading—a fact emphasized by the announcement on Jan. 5 by Borden Dairy, the milk processor, that it is filing for bankruptcy protection. Borden, which said it was impacted by "market challenges facing the dairy industry," follows Dean Foods, America’s largest milk producer, which filed for bankruptcy protection in November.
    America has fallen out of love with drinking milk, as lower-calorie options have proliferated and people are substituting water bottles for milk cartons. Americans each drank an estimated 146 lb. of fluid milk—a category that includes products from skim to cream—in 2018, according to the USDAs Economic Research Service. That may sound like a lot, but it’s down 26％ just since 2000. The downturn has been tough on dairy processors like Borden and Dean, which buy fresh milk from farms and use techniques like pasteurization to create a consumer-safe beverage with a longer shelf life. For the past five years, thanks to technology that increased milk production, fresh-milk prices were relatively low, which meant processors could break even despite shifting demand.
    But prices began ticking up again last year, squeezing the processors’ already tight margins. "Declining sales in a thin-margin business is not a good recipe for success," says Mark Stephenson, director of dairy policy analysis at the University of Wisconsin.
    Milk processors are also facing competition from big retailers, which have set up their own processing plants. In 2018, Walmart opened a milk-processing plant in Indiana to serve hundreds of stores in the Midwest, taking away approximately 95 million gal. of milk-processing business from Dean Foods.
    On the other end of the supply chain, dairy farms are facing trouble of their own. The low prices that were a boon to processors left small farmers struggling across the industry. The number of Chapter 12 farm bankruptcies in 2019 was up 24％ from the previous year. "We’re trying our best to hang on," says Mary Rieckmann, a dairy farmer in Wisconsin whose family has turned to GoFundMe to keep their century-old farm running.
    Borden says it plans to continue to operate as it restructures under court supervision. But if that plan fails, it wouldn’t be the first dairy processor to cease operations. There were 605 fluid-milk plants in America in 1990. By 2018, there were only 459.
The decline of milk consumption________.
选项 A、has accelerated by 26％ because of low-production
B、stimulates production technology to upgrade
C、profoundly affects dairy processors like Borden Dairy
D、results in the breakdown of traditional milk companies
答案C
解析 根据题干中decline of milk consumption(牛奶消费减少)定位至第二段。本段第三句提到“自2000年起下降了26％”。第四句顺承第三句说明影响： “这种下降趋势使得博登和迪恩这样的乳制品加工商的日子愈发难过(The downturn has been tough on dairy processors like Borden and Dean)”。由此可以推断出C项“严重影响了像博登这样的乳制品加工商”正确。选项A“因为产量低，已经快速下降了26％”，文中提及“下降26％”，但与产量下降无关，故排除。第二段提及“利用巴氏消毒等技术生产保质期更长且适合消费者饮用的安全饮品(…use techniques like pasteurization to create a consumer-safe beverage with a longer shelf life)”，但与选项B“促进生产技术的升级”无关，故排除。第二段最后一句说明“即便需求有所变化，加工商们依然可以达到收支平衡(…processors could break even despite shifting demand)”与D项“导致传统乳制品公司破产”表述相反，故排除。
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