VOA慢速英語(yǔ):Thanksgiving, but US Turkey Farmers Aren't Celebrating

[00:00.00]From VOA Learning English, [00:02.83]this is the Agriculture Report in Special English. [00:07.17]Thanksgiving Day is a national holiday [00:10.35]that Americans celebrate on the fourth Thursday in November. [00:15.49]This autumn festival is traditionally celebrated [00:19.65]with family and friends [00:21.19]over a big meal that takes hours to prepare. [00:25.38]The meal usually includes turkey served along with dishes [00:30.86]like cranberries, sweet potatoes, green beans and pumpkin pie. [00:37.33]The turkey is usually seasoned and roasted in an oven, [00:41.95]but some people fry the bird in oil [00:45.37]or cook it on a grill or in a smoker. [00:49.07]The National Turkey Federation estimates [00:53.10]that Americans ate forty-six million birds for last year's holiday. [00:59.21]The government expects turkey production [01:02.28]to increase two percent this year. [01:05.71]About two-thirds of the turkeys raised in the United States [01:10.47]came from six states: Minnesota, North Carolina, [01:15.62]Arkansas, Missouri, Virginia and Indiana. [01:20.21]Turkey is eaten all year, [01:22.59]and Americans have been eating more of it over the years, [01:26.73]though chicken, beef and pork are still more popular. [01:31.42]Federation president Joel Brandenberger says [01:36.18]twenty-twelve will not be as profitable for turkey farmers [01:40.32]as the last two years were. [01:42.68]Feed costs are up while turkey prices are about the same. [01:48.55]"Corn is our number one feed ingredient, [01:52.71]and the drought has obviously increased [01:57.42]the price of corn dramatically and, frankly, [02:00.60]the fact that an ever-increasing amount of the corn crop [02:03.36]is being diverted to ethanol production [02:05.40]also has increased the cost of corn. [02:08.53]So that's created some difficulty for the industry this year." [02:11.71]The Pilgrims' feast in sixteen twenty-one [02:15.46]is often considered the nation's first Thanksgiving. [02:19.57]The Pilgrims were early settlers of Plymouth Colony [02:24.11]in what is now Massachusetts. [02:26.74]They held a three-day feast to celebrate a good harvest. [02:32.19]However, other European settlers in North America [02:36.60]also held ceremonies of thanks. [02:39.84]These included British colonists in Virginia in sixteen nineteen. [02:46.24]In eighteen sixty-three, during the Civil War, [02:50.78]President Abraham Lincoln declared the last Thursday of November [02:56.44]as a national day of thanksgiving. [02:59.63]In nineteen thirty-nine, as the Great Depression was ending, [03:04.61]President Franklin Roosevelt established the holiday on the fourth Thursday. [03:10.73]He did not want to shorten the Christmas holiday shopping season [03:15.27]in years when November has a fifth Thursday. [03:19.74]The season traditionally begins with a busy shopping day [03:24.05]on the Friday after Thanksgiving, [03:26.72]although some stores are now opening on the holiday itself. [03:31.63]One of America's founders, Ben Franklin, [03:35.66]thought the turkey would better represent the country [03:39.05]as its official bird than the bald eagle. [03:42.54]But Joel Brandenberger disagrees. [03:45.58]"I think we're better off having the bald eagle on our coins [03:49.26]and the Thanksgiving turkey on our dinner table."

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