第貳部份：閱讀理解
（共5題，占16分，作答時請將答案依照順序寫在答案卷上）
Please read the following article and answer the three questions.
（第 1 題至第 3 題，每題 2 分，共 6 分，答錯、整題未答不予倒扣） Your Polytunnel Needs You (The Economist, 18 April 2020) “Normally on holidays, I spend money,” says James Mwendwa, a geology student at Bristol University.
“This holiday I’ll be making it.” Mr Mwendwa has signed up with a scheme designed to get students and
furloughed workers to spend their summers on British farms. He has been promised a caravan to share with
his friends on a farm in Norfolk. “In the evenings you’re allowed to just chill with your mates,” a rare luxury
in current circumstances.
Finding enough summertime labour has often been a struggle for British farmers. Factory workers used to
move south en masse to enjoy a family holiday while picking fruit or hops. In recent years, the indigenous
population has turned its nose up at agricultural work, and farmers have come to rely on importing
Bulgarians and Romanians. Uncertainty around migrants’ rights and Brexit led to a decline in worker
numbers last year, and around 16m apples were left to rot in orchards. A near-shutdown on European
movement has only deepened the crisis.
Invoking the Women’s Land Army that kept the nation’s farms going throughout the second world war, the
British Growers Association is trying to recruit a new “Land Army” to fill a shortfall of some 70,000 workers.
The government’s “Pick for Britain” campaign similarly aims to tap into the wartime spirit.
So far Britons seem largely unmoved by the appeal to patriotism. Concordia, Fruitful and hops, three
agricultural recruiters that have formed the Ethical Alliance of Labour Providers, say that 32,000 have
applied, but only 13% have so far turned up for online interviews.
Even if enough native workers can be found, that may not solve the problem. Britons have a reputation for
being work-shy. “Often, you have people who want to start, and we’ll say, come on Tuesday or whatever,
and then they simply don’t turn up.” says Sebastian Hall, a recruiter in Suffolk.
Alison Capper of the National Farmers’ Union, herself a farmer, wonders whether new recruits “will be able
to pick at the same rate as people who are practised in these jobs”. Jack Ward, boss of the British Growers
Association, worries about timing. Although new workers may arrive just in time to save the nation’s
asparagus, an early end to the lockdown could send students and furloughed workers scurrying back to their
real lives and jobs.
For some farmers, the risk of relying on Britons is too great. To avert a crisis in the polytunnels, they have
started shipping planeloads of Romanians into the country. Air Charter Services, whose customers are
normally the uber-rich, has been hired by g’s Fresh, one of Britain’s biggest salad producers, to fly 150
Romanians into Stansted airport on April 16th; a further five flights are lined up. Each seat will set g’s Fresh
back £250 ($313), and the passengers (who have been deemed essential workers by the Romanian
government) will be kept apart on the flight and tested for covid-19 on touch-down. The airlift may spoil
the wartime-spirit narrative, but it may save the nation’s broccoli.
【題組】2. ( ) What’s the difficulty that British farmers are facing now?
(A)lacking of manpower
(B) lacking of arable land
(C)need more start-up capital
(D) shortage of managerial experience
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VIP與詳解卡管理
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