SOMINI SENGUPTA2026年8月24日本月，德国塞卢布村的一片农田里，一台联合收割机正在给小麦脱粒。由于干旱和高温，德国包括小麦在内的多种作物产量均有所下降。 Lisi Niesner/ReutersInstant noodles. Hot chapatis. Sliced bread.方便面。热乎乎的恰帕提饼。切片面包。Wheat is at the heart of the modern diet, and this year, it is facing an accumulation of modern dangers. The breadbaskets of the world are getting pummeled by drone strikes and devilish weather, nudging prices higher amid already soaring food costs in the wake of the Iran war.小麦是现代饮食的核心，而今年，它正面临着不断累积的一系列现代威胁。全球的粮仓正遭受无人机袭击和恶劣天气的双重打击，在伊朗战争后本已飙升的食品价格基础上进一步推高了粮价。Heat and drought have diminished harvests in some of the biggest wheat-producing countries, including the United States, which is expected to have its worst wheat harvest in a half-century, spiking prices. Poor countries that agreed to buy American wheat under the threat of Trump tariffs could be stuck paying abnormally high prices.高温和干旱导致包括美国在内的一些主要小麦生产国的收成减少，预计美国将迎来半个世纪以来最差的小麦收成，这将导致价格飙升。在特朗普关税威胁下同意购买美国小麦的贫穷国家可能被迫要支付异常高昂的价格。The Black Sea, a crucial passage for the global wheat trade, is an active theater of the Russia-Ukraine war, while the Houthi militia’s attacks on shipping in the Red Sea have already forced grain shipments to take a longer, more expensive route around South Africa.黑海是全球小麦贸易的关键通道，目前也是俄乌战争的活跃战区；而胡塞武装对红海航运的袭击已迫使粮食运输绕道南非，走更远、更昂贵的路线。Beyond that, a supercharged El Niño further threatens water levels in the Panama Canal, while drought has reduced water levels to perilously low levels in transit routes like the Rhine and Danube rivers in Europe, raising transportation costs. All this at a time when the global atmosphere is hotter than normal because of a century of fossil fuel burning, threatening the livelihoods of small farmers in poor countries.此外，强烈的厄尔尼诺现象进一步威胁着巴拿马运河的水位，而干旱已使欧洲莱茵河和多瑙河等运输航道的水位降至危险低位，推高了运输成本。这一切都发生在全球气温因一个世纪的化石燃料燃烧而高于正常水平之时，危及着贫穷国家小农的生计。The simultaneous troubles reveal the risks inherent in the global food system today. Only a few crops, like wheat, provide most of the world’s calories. Relatively few governments dominate the export of wheat, including Russia, Canada, the United States, Ukraine, and the European Union. Their customers are mainly low-income countries that no longer grow much of the food their people eat.这些同时出现的困境揭示了当今全球粮食体系固有的风险。少数几种作物（如小麦）提供了全球大部分热量。小麦出口由相对少的几个政府主导，包括俄罗斯、加拿大、美国、乌克兰和欧盟。它们的客户主要是低收入国家，这些国家已不再大量生产本国人民所需的粮食。“The system we currently have in place depends on three things: seamless trade, cheap energy, stable climate,” said Evan Fraser, a professor who studies the global food system at the University of Guelph, in Ontario. “Today, it seems none of these assumptions are met.”“我们目前所依赖的体系建立在三个前提之上：无缝衔接的贸易、廉价的能源、稳定的气候，”安大略省圭尔夫大学研究全球粮食体系的教授埃文·弗雷泽说。“如今，这些假设似乎没有一条能够满足。”2022年，乌克兰巴尔文科夫附近前线阵地的一片未收割麦田里，一支乌克兰陆军巡逻队正在行进。Few things are as politically potent as the price of bread, and wheat prices were already at a three-year high in July, according to the Food and Agriculture Organization. The U.N. agency has warned of higher prices later this year.没有什么比面包价格更具政治敏感性了，根据联合国粮食及农业组织的数据，小麦价格在7月已处于三年来的高位。该联合国机构已警告今年晚些时候价格将进一步上涨。The saving grace is that the world had a bumper crop of wheat last year, and global stocks remain strong. The risk, said Monika Tothova, an economist who specializes in commodities at the Food and Agriculture Organization, is that “several sources of uncertainty begin to reinforce one another.”值得庆幸的是，去年全球小麦大丰收，全球库存依然充足。粮农组织专攻大宗商品的经济学家莫妮卡·托托娃表示，风险在于“几种不确定性因素开始相互叠加”。“A combination of El Niño-related weather impacts across major exporters, renewed constraints on Black Sea exports and further disruptions to key shipping routes would have implications far beyond wheat production itself,” she said.“厄尔尼诺相关天气对主要出口国的影响、黑海出口再次受阻以及关键航运路线的进一步中断，这些因素叠加起来的影响将远远超出小麦生产本身，”她说。War Hits the Black Sea, a Grain Choke Point战争冲击粮食咽喉要道黑海Russia and Ukraine together account for nearly a third of the wheat that the world buys. This year, just as harvests began, their grain shipments have nearly ground to a halt.俄罗斯和乌克兰合计生产了全球购买量近三分之一的小麦。今年，正值收割开始之际，两国的粮食运输几乎陷入停滞。In recent weeks, both Russia and Ukraine have stepped up their attacks on each other’s grain export terminals and ships in the Black Sea, a waterway they share to get their goods out to the world.近几周来，俄罗斯和乌克兰均增加了对彼此在黑海（两国共同用于向世界出口商品的水道）粮食出口码头和船只的攻击。In the critical Russian Black Sea port city of Novorossiysk, grain terminals suspended operations after a drone attack in early August.在俄罗斯重要的黑海港口城市新罗西斯克，粮食码头在8月初一次无人机袭击后暂停了运营。That attack followed a Russian bombing campaign against the Ukrainian port city of Odesa, which Ukraine relies on to get its grain out. A potential alternative, the Danube River, is far more difficult to begin with — and this year, the Danube’s water levels have plummeted because of drought. When Russia invaded Ukraine and blocked its Black Sea grain trade in 2022 at the beginning of the war, the sharp increase in global food prices put tens of millions of people at increased risk of acute food insecurity.此次袭击发生在俄罗斯对乌克兰港口城市敖德萨的轰炸行动之后，敖德萨是乌克兰粮食出口所依赖的港口。多瑙河作为一条潜在的替代路线，本身就困难得多，而且由于干旱，今年多瑙河水位急剧下降。2022年俄罗斯入侵乌克兰并封锁其黑海粮食贸易时，全球食品价格的急剧上涨使数千万人面临更高的严重粮食安全风险。This time, the Ukrainian Agri Council, a trade group, has warned of a potential wave of bankruptcies amid the blockade, saying that “the challenges currently facing the agricultural sector are significantly more dangerous and severe in their consequences than even those of 2022.”这一次，贸易组织乌克兰农业委员会在封锁中警告可能出现的破产潮，称“当前农业部门面临的挑战，其后果比2022年时更加危险和严重”。Weather Is Scrambling Harvests天气正在扰乱收成Wildfires this summer spared the wheat belt of France, the European Union’s largest wheat producer. But the heat has not.法国的小麦带幸免于今年夏天的野火，但没能躲过高温天气。法国是欧盟最大的小麦生产国。France expects lower yields because of record heat this summer, according to government projections. Germany’s main farmers group said on Tuesday that yields were down for several crops, including wheat, because of drought and heat. In July, the European trade group for agricultural commodities, Coceral, issued a special bulletin, estimating lower grain yields of 286.6 million metric tons this year, compared with 310 million metric tons in 2025, for the continent and for Britain.根据政府预测，由于今年夏季创纪录的高温，法国预计产量将下降。德国主要农民组织周二表示，由于干旱和高温，包括小麦在内的几种作物产量均下降。7月，欧洲农产品贸易组织Coceral发布特别公告，估计今年欧洲大陆和英国的粮食产量为2.866亿吨，而2025年为3.1亿吨。小麦和谷物收成减少正在推高全球市场价格。Australia, also a major wheat exporter, planted fewer acres of wheat because of high fertilizer costs, stemming from the Strait of Hormuz closure.澳大利亚也是主要小麦出口国，由于霍尔木兹海峡关闭导致化肥成本高企，其小麦种植面积有所减少。The United States is about to have its worst wheat harvest since 1970, largely because of a terrible drought in the Great Plains, the U.S. Department of Agriculture estimated in its latest report this month. American farmers had devoted fewer acres to wheat, and yields per acre were also down.美国农业部在本月的最新报告中估计，本国将迎来自上世纪70年代以来最差的小麦收成，主要原因是大平原地区的严重干旱。美国农民减少了小麦种植面积，而单位面积产量也有所下降。Currently, there is enough grain stored in the silos of farmers, traders and government reserves globally.目前，全球农民、贸易商和政府储备的粮仓中仍有足够的粮食库存。But the smaller harvests are raising prices on the world market. Prices of U.S. soft red wheat have jumped by nearly 25 percent in the first seven months of the year, according to an analysis by Joseph Glauber, an economist with the International Food Policy Research Institute. Prices of hard red wheat have soared even more sharply. U.S. wheat stocks are down too.但收成减少正在推高全球市场价格。根据国际粮食政策研究所经济学家约瑟夫·格劳伯的分析，今年前七个月，美国软红冬小麦价格已上涨近25%。硬红冬小麦价格涨势更为迅猛。美国小麦库存也在下降。“It’s not a question of availability. It’s a question of affordability,” Mr. Glauber said. “Anybody who is selling wheat will profit from the higher price.”“这不是供应问题，而是负担能力问题，”格劳伯说。“任何出售小麦的人都会从高价中获利。”Importing Countries Feel the Pinch进口国承受压力Rising prices of imported wheat puts enormous pressure on governments that are forced to buy high and then help subsidize the costs to keep bread prices within the reach of its people.进口小麦价格上涨给各国政府带来巨大压力，它们被迫高价买入，然后为了将面包价格维持在民众可承受范围内，还需要提供成本补贴。Egypt, which buys most of its wheat from abroad, including from Russia and Ukraine, has tried to bolster wheat production at home, with the government offering higher prices to farmers. Still, Egypt remains far from reaching anything close to self-sufficiency. There is simply not enough water to produce what the country needs.埃及大部分小麦依赖进口（包括从俄罗斯和乌克兰），该国一直试图通过政府向农民提供更高收购价来提振国内小麦生产。然而，埃及距离自给自足仍然遥不可及——根本上缺乏足够的水源来生产其所需的数量。5月，埃及马拉齐克的一片农田里，农民正在给收获的小麦脱粒。该国大部分小麦依赖进口。Then there are President Trump’s tariffs. To try to avoid additional higher rates, some wheat-importing emerging economies, such as Bangladesh, agreed to buy substantial amounts of U.S. wheat.还有特朗普总统的关税问题。为了避免被加征更高税率，孟加拉国等一些小麦进口新兴经济体同意大量购买美国小麦。That means they are obliged to pay whatever price U.S. wheat goes for this year, even it is substantially higher than what other countries are offering.这意味着它们必须承担今年美国小麦的任何价格，即使该价格远高于其他国家提供的价格。Analysts in Bangladesh have denounced the deal as unfair.孟加拉国的分析人士已经在谴责该交易不公平。History’s Grim Lessons历史的惨痛教训The perils facing the world’s breadbaskets come at a time when an El Niño, a naturally recurring weather pattern, is raising the risks of extreme weather for farmers in many parts of the world, including in countries like Ethiopia and Guatemala, where millions of small farmers subsist on what they grow on their own land.全球粮仓面临的这些危险正值厄尔尼诺（一种自然发生的周期性气候模式）给世界许多地区农民增加了极端天气风险之际，包括埃塞俄比亚和危地马拉等国，那里数百万小农依靠自家土地上种植的作物维持生计。The last major El Niño event, in 2015 and 2016, worsened food insecurity for an estimated 60 million to 100 million people, the World Food Program estimated.据世界粮食计划署估计，上一次重大厄尔尼诺事件发生在2015年和2016年，导致约6000万至1亿人的粮食安全状况恶化。This time, the W.F.P. says, it could expand the ranks of those who are unable to meet their daily food needs to 274 million, up from 225 million today. The biggest effects are expected in Central America and southern Africa.这一次，世界粮食计划署表示，厄尔尼诺可能使无法满足日常粮食需求的人数从目前的2.25亿增加到2.74亿。预计中美洲和南部非洲受到的影响最大。“It is naïve to think we can rely on a food system built for a different era,” Mr. Fraser said. “And so we need to reimagine how to feed ourselves.”“认为我们可以依赖为另一个时代建立的粮食体系是天真的，”弗雷泽说。“因此，我们需要重新构想如何养活自己。”Somini Sengupta是《纽约时报》气候团队的国际气候记者。翻译：经雷点击查看本文英文版。